Good Together
by Sunfalling
Summary: Asaba Hideaki finds the perfect boy and tries to put him back together. ArimaxMiyazawa with onesided AsabaxArima. Follows the manga...mostly. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Yes, it's a continuing fic! I hope to post around ten pages once a week, but I'm a lazy writer so we'll see how long that lasts.

Many fervent thanks to my incredibly brilliant, helpful, and hard-working beta, starbrigid. Check out her fic 'Model Student' if you haven't already. Any mistakes you see are because I neglected to completely follow her excellent advice.

Good Together

by sunfalling

No one knows how the moon loves the sun; they are rarely seen together. When Asaba Hideaki was a child his father took him outside to see the full moon. He sat on his dad's firm, strong shoulders and reached out with both hands to frame the gray-white orb with the imperfect circle made from his small thumbs and index fingers.

"You know, the moon doesn't actually shine," his father told him. "It's only a cold, dead rock that reflects the light of the sun."

Hideaki couldn't believe this. The moon was too beautiful and radiant to be dead. The idea of a poor, empty moon that had no power for warmth saddened him greatly.

"Don't be silly," he father said when he voiced this empathy. They went back into the house were it was warm and Hideaki ran to the window. He wanted to look at the moon again but the light from the house was so bright that he could barely see past his own reflection on the glass.

He worried about the fate of the pale beggar in the sky who tried to look beautiful by stealing light from another. But at the same time, he took comfort in the fact that the moon was so good at pretending to shine; surely almost everyone would be fooled.

-

Through the rush of skittering leaves, Hideaki saw a solitary figure moving steadily down the path toward the school buildings, book bag slung over one shoulder, nondescript school uniform blending into the landscape. There was nothing unusual about the lone student rushing through the fallen leaves, but the way he moved, the pace of his feet, the downward tilt of his face all helped Hideaki identify him immediately.

"Arima!" he called. "Wait up!"

The figure stopped; a pale visage against the dark landscape showed him Arima's turned face. Breaking into a trot, Hideaki relished the feel of the leaves crunching under his feet, dry and crisp.

"Trying to escape me, I see," he accused between breaths, reaching the boy's side.

Arima didn't reply, just pushed his book bag further up on his shoulder and turned toward the path again. His breath showed white in the cold air.

"Oh, ignoring me now?" Hideaki grumbled, opting for brash cheerfulness. "You think you're too good for me, is that it?"

He reached up and ruffled Arima's dark hair, grinning at the shorter boy's glare.

"You're so cute when you're pissed, Soichiro," he teased.

Arima rolled his eyes dramatically and lifted his head, reacting at last. "You really need to get a girlfriend."

"No girl could challenge your place in my heart." Hideaki declared, throwing an arm around Arima's firm shoulders. "And I have yet to find one as beautiful as you." He could feel the muscles beneath the uniform, thick from endless hours of kendo practice and sports activities. If he bent a little closer, Hideaki could smell Arima's clean hair, the toothpaste on his breath, and feel the faint heat radiating from his skin.

"You're lucky Miyazawa isn't here," Arima grumbled. He didn't remove the arm draped over him, but he didn't turn his head toward the taller boy either.

"Oh, she's learned to share you," Hideaki asserted. "She knows you can't give up your love with me just yet."

"Right," Arima muttered, eyes going to the sky again. "I'd give anything to get rid of you."

"Aw, you don't mean that," Hideaki said, pulling Arima closer. "Mmmm," he murmured, brushing his face up the side of the paler boy's neck. For one electrifying, shivery-strange moment, he could feel the rough material of the uniform on his chin, the smooth warmth of skin, the soft-sweet-wonderful feel of clean, dark hair running against his lips, his nose, his eyelids…

"Stop it," Arima hissed, shifting his weight to push the taller boy away.

"So violent!" Hideaki whined theatrically, moving beyond the reach of Arima's killer elbows. The game they played was familiar to him and he knew just how far he could go, just how much he could touch before Arima reacted

"You're such a stupid pervert," Arima grumbled, face red, as he turned away to continue walking. His mouth glared steadfastly downward, but no hardness lingered in the corners of his eyes, no tension in his shoulders, and he could not truly be angry. A leaf caught in his shoelaces waving gaily with the movement of each step.

"Wait for me!" Hideaki called, crunching after him down the leaf-strewn path.

-------

It didn't seem so long ago that Asaba Hideaki had walked up that path for the first time, approaching the new high school with a careless gait and an appraising eye.

He had already noticed heads turning, bright eyes watching him stride confidently toward the building. Small, pretty schoolgirls in short, plaid skirts glanced up at him with shining eyes, blushing and tittering among themselves like excited songbirds.

_This is going to be a very good school_, he decided, flashing a charming grin toward a cluster of already infatuated girls. Their kind had worshiped him for as long as he could remember, warm faces cooing over his adorable features. It had become a way of life now to be surrounded by girls smitten by his good looks and carefree lifestyle.

So when he met Arima—his equal in beauty, but opposite in attitude—he had only good things planned for their alliance—much manipulation of gullible schoolgirls, of course.

He walked out of class and watched the tide of students lazily, slouched on a cold bench under the cloudy sky. Spotting a lovely flock of girls eating under the trees by the river, he stood, stretched once and started to meander toward them. A slight movement in the empty courtyard caught his eye, and he turned to catch a glimpse of the lean form of a boy in the school uniform, standing against the long granite pillar near the trees by the biology building, almost obscured by the shadows. Hideaki would never have seen him, if not for the light that winked off the zipper on his jacket and outlined the silhouette of his silent face.

He seemed to be staring moodily up into the branches silhouetted against the gray sky, swaying with a suddenly chill wind. Hideaki stood, unable to speak, shivering and confused. Unexpectedly, the boy turned his head and Hideaki could only see his eyes, stray shimmers of light in the darkness that covered his face. Hideaki's throat felt tight.

"Oi! Asaba-kun!" a high voice squealed behind him, and he turned to face a gaggle of flushed girls from class F.

"We made cookies for you! Chocolate chip!"

Hideaki managed to pull his startled expression into a charming smile as the girls reached him, smiling shyly and glancing at each other for confidence. He followed them back to the classroom, anticipating warm cookies and sweet admiration. Something tugged at his consciousness and he looked back once, searching the tree with his eyes. But only the shadows remained and a light rain began its soft descent, eliciting squeals from the girls.

-

Arima Soichiro, he learned to boy's name was. Class A's representative, honors student, star of the kendo team and arguably the best looking boy in the entire school displayed an androgynous beauty enhanced by subtle elegance. He only had to look at a girl with his those mysterious eyes and gracefully hand her a copy of the class schedule to have her melt at his feet like warm ice cream. And he didn't have a girlfriend.

It was odd; everyone seemed to like and admire the handsome first year, but they all admitted that he acted distant and unsocial—helpful and kind with everyone, but never openly friendly. _Which is a shame,_ Hideaki decided, w_ith a face like that, he could win over every girl in the school instantly._ _Together we would be unstoppable_, he thought giddily_. I have to make him my ally._

The next time he saw Arima, the quiet boy was alone once again, sleeping under a sakura tree during break, his slender form in its dark uniform contrasting sharply with the pale pink of the petals. They fell on his clothes, nestled in his black hair, and balanced precariously on the smooth surface of his peaceful face. Underneath them, Arima slept, petals trembling on his lips and eyelids, resting on the fringe of his lashes.

Hideaki couldn't speak. It was the perfect chance to break the ice, to tease the distant boy and introduce himself into Arima's life. Instead, he could only stand and stare like an observer in an art gallery, watching the strangely fragile scene before him. His shoe scuffed the grass indecisively. He turned and walked to class.

Arima came in late. He still had white-pink petals caught in his hair and his clothes as he entered, breathless from his rush to class. The other boys teased him with longing remarks after the teacher left, but Hideaki only sat, uncharacteristically silent. He needed to make a move, but Arima had to stay late for cleaning and Hideaki had a project to finish for his art class. He would have to wait another day to catch Arima.

-

Talking with Arima wasn't difficult, even though he could be politely distant at times, he always replied with clarity and attentiveness, answering Hideaki's questions, offering assistance, and gradually revealing bits of himself. Hideaki invited himself to a few kendo practices and study sessions at Arima's house. Within days they became known as best friends and eventually Arima began to speak, vaguely and guardedly, about himself. Hideaki learned to watch closely for those rare hints of a troubled family, a lingering shame, and an ardent ambition for perfection.

"Your parents are so polite," Hideaki observed after his first visit to the Arima residence. "I can see where you got your manners."

Arima looked uncomfortable, but he straightened his shoulders stiffly. "They're actually not my real parents. My mother and father died when I was a child and I've lived with my aunt and uncle since."

"Oh," Hideaki murmured, unsure whether he should offer sympathy. Arima didn't seem like the type to appreciate pity.

"That's why I can't let them down," Arima said decisively. He stared pensively out at the horizon while Hideaki scrambled for a lighter topic of conversation.

"So, are there any girls you like?" he asked Arima carefully, wondering if his grand plan for the girl farm would succeed.

"I'm concentrating on school right now," Arima told him firmly.

However, he gradually began to exhibit small signs of attraction, blushing, and flustered silence when it came to the subject. Eventually he admitted an interest in one student in particular—the brilliant and ambitious Miyazawa Yukino.

"She's so diligent," he said wistfully, "and she knows exactly what she wants. No one can change her mind or make her lose focus. It's amazing."

Hideaki rolled his eyes skeptically. "Sounds boring. You could make her head turn, I bet, if you really wanted to."

"No," Arima breathed, resigned to his fate. "She's not interested in me. Besides, I'm not exactly good for anyone, really…"

It sounded soft and half-formed, an unintentional admittance of some dark depression. Hideaki narrowed his eyes, confused. The blackness he saw on the edges of Arima's clear eyes made him shiver.

"Every girl in this school is dying to get a date with you," he told Arima resolutely, quite certain of the fact, despite Arima's bleak gaze.

"Not her," Arima said, eyes cast down. "She hates me."

-

On Saturday, he visited Arima's house once again to study for an upcoming math test. By now, Arima's aunt and uncle knew him by name and seemed happy to see their quiet nephew making such an openly cheerful acquaintance.

"Delicious chicken, Mrs. Arima," he said wolfing it down happily. She smiled happily despite her nephew's warning look in Hideaki's direction.

"So, you're going to spend the night again, Asaba? I'm so glad Soichiro has such a good friend," she said. Hideaki grinned and nodded. "You know, I was looking through some old pictures of you, Soichiro, and I found some wonderful shots for the scrapbook I'm making." She directed them to a nearby cabinet as she began to pick up the dishes.

"Oi, Arima, look at this," Hideaki crowed, holding up a small photo. "You're so adorable it make me want to cry!"

"No!" Arima growled, trying to snatch it from his fingers. His face flushed bright pink with mortification.

"Oh, let me have it! I promise to treasure it forever."

Arima's aunt emerged from the kitchen, laughing softly at Hideaki's eagerness. "I have another copy of that one. You can have it, Asaba-kun."

"No, he can't!" Arima protested. "He'll do something embarrassing with it I know he will."

Hideaki smoothed his fingers over the small, shy face in the photograph, looking back into the wide innocence of young eyes. "I'll take good care of you, little Arima."

-

Lounging in the cool silence of Arima's bedroom, Hideaki drew a dinosaur. He should have been working on the march of math problems stretching down the side of the page before him, but instead he doodled lazily, outlining a lizard, a car, and a spherically challenged Pacman.

Arima lay on the bed next to him, an open book folded over his chest, his breathing rhythmic.

"Are you _sleeeeping_, Soichiro?" Hideaki murmured, drawing eyebrows on the Pacman.

Silent, Arima continued to rest.

"Chasing that girl around must wear you out," Hideaki said, sketching a cartoonish version of his friend sprawled indolently, large snoring effects floating from his mouth.

"Love her," Arima said, his voice little more than a soft exhalation. Hideaki stopped scribbling and looked up from the paper to Arima's relaxed features. He leaned closer to hear better.

"She punched me, you know," Arima said, lips barely moving. "Hurt. But it got an honest reaction out of me."

Hideaki scowled comically. "Domestic abuse!"

Arima's eyes fluttered half open and his fingers tightened on the book he held. "No, it showed me that I couldn't keep pretending with her and be so stiff all the time. We both agreed that we're not going to play parts anymore…" His voice trailed off as sleep tugged at him again.

Hideaki said nothing as he watched Arima's eyelids slide closed again, the tension in his shoulders releasing. Hints of a blush lingered on his skin. A soft sigh rose from his lips.

"I really do love her, I think."

The room languished in calm silence once more. Hideaki watched his pen roll over his knees. He watched a patch of light from the window linger on Arima's peaceful face, the sharp angles of Arima's elbows and knees, the many folds of his clothing. From his fragile wrists, hands with long white fingers splayed out against the rough binding of the book. Arima slept.

Hideaki stared at the complacent pen on his lap and the pen stared back.

-

It took them less than a week to get together. Someone reported that Arima Soichiro and Miyazawa Yukino had been holding hands right in the middle of class. Within hours, the entire school knew.

_What a joke_, Hideaki thought sourly. Arima's dream girl had turned into a nightmare. Instead of the charming version of perfection everyone had imagined, she had revealed herself to be an over-achieving, madly competitive little spitfire who only pretended to be sweet and mature when it benefited her. This would have been perfectly fine with Hideaki if Arima hadn't remained so ridiculously, devotedly in love with her.

"We're going to be ourselves now," he told Hideaki, practically glowing with contentment. "No more perfect masks or competition. That stuff isn't important."

They had been officially announced as a couple. Hideaki felt so disgusted by the approval surrounding the two that when the cute little honor student herself greeted him in the hall, he stopped her cold.

"I guess nobody ever got a very good look at you," he said nonchalantly. "You're really nothing special."

She said nothing, but he caught the gleam of fangs behind her polite smile. It marked the start of the short but violent Miyazawa-Hideaki War. She stole his drinks, threw things at him, and poked him with pencils during class. He retaliated as best he could, and even resorted to shaking centipedes in her face, but Miyazawa was vicious, striking quickly before retreating behind an innocent façade.

Arima laughed at his irritated complaints and claimed that he liked the wilder side of his sweet-faced girlfriend. Hideaki simmered. When he saw her twirling happily in the hall, reveling over plans for a first date, he couldn't stop himself.

"He'll get tired of this, you know," Hideaki said, "I can't understand what he sees in you, but eventually he'll come to his senses."

She glared threateningly up at him. "You've been against me from the start. What do you think you can accomplish?"

"I'll get rid of you," he told her, "Arima will be mine."

Blinking, she stared at him a second and then blushed, giggling behind her hand. "Well, I wondered if you had different…tastes."

"Not like that!" he shouted, feeling his face flare up like a paper lantern in a gust of wind. Her insinuation was so embarrassingly wrong that he wanted to go bury himself in the sand.

"I…need him for my girl farm," he admitted at last, detailing his fanciful plan for the kingdom of little lambs.

Her face wrinkled with predictable disgust. "You're sick. I can't believe you'd expect him to go along with something like that."

"Why not? He's crazy enough to go out with you."

Miyazawa clenched her teeth. "You have absolutely no conscience, do you?"

Hideaki smirked. "Says the girl who decided to deceive the entire school. You've manipulated people all your life. If I'm scum, what does that make you?" He watched her eyes widen in shock, felt the resentment like hot lead in his veins. "Wake up, idiot. Do you really think you deserve a guy like Arima?"

Minutes stretched, grating tingling nerves.

"Tell me I'm wrong," he demanded.

She said nothing; her head dropped and she turned to walk away. Watching her retreat down the hall, Hideaki relaxed his clenched hands. Her footsteps faded into silence. He felt guilty…but only a little.

-

"_What the hell did you say to her?_" Arima growled, shoving him against a locker. "You think I don't know what you're doing, Asaba? I've gotten used to people trying to use me." His eyes flashed like a sky in storm but his face remained terrifying in its utter calm. "But if you even try to hurt her again, I swear you'll be sorry for the rest of your life."

Releasing Hideaki, he turned for the stairs, leaving the stunned boy gaping in the hall.

"What is it with that girl?" Hideaki cried. "Why are you so…" His voice cracked inopportunely, catching in his dry throat.

Arima paused on the stairs, his form blending with the shadows of the corner and flecked with bits of sunlight from the window. "Don't you understand?" For a moment, he seemed to soften, staring at something Hideaki couldn't see. "She stays by me without expecting anything in return."

Shock covered Hideaki's mind. He couldn't speak. All this time he had used Arima without thinking, to enhance his own social standing and his self-image, and the other boy had realized it even before Hideaki.

It was the first time he had seen the other side of the good, responsible class rep who let sakura petals nestle peacefully in his hair. This Arima loomed like the boy standing in the shadow of the trees, his eyes empty wells of darkness. This was the searing brilliance of an anger that left Hideaki silent and pensive for hours.

Arima's hands had left bruises on his shoulders and his back felt sore from its collision with the locker. He touched these small hurts incessantly, feeling his heart race again at the image of Arima's white face, striking in its cold fury, the rush of adrenaline in his veins, fear and something less tangible…a trembling excitement.

He could see Miyazawa eternally giggling behind that hateful hand. _"Well, I wondered if you had different…tastes."_

-

Two days later found Hideaki watching the white sidewalk flash under his feet as he walked, feeling the sun on the back of his shoulders. The day was beautiful. His shoe caught in a crack. Stumbling, he looked up into frightened eyes.

Miyazawa stood all alone on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater, twisting her hands against her simple knit dress, sandaled feet pulled together modestly. Her hair remained tucked behind her ears, revealing wide eyes that looked back at him with a terrified vulnerability.

He saw her purse had fallen to the cement and reached awkwardly to pick it up, mind racing. _She should be on a date with Arima today_, he remembered, _but…_

"Where's Arima?" he asked, confused. Looking into her tearful eyes, the knowledge came to him in a triumphant rush. "Ah, you got stood up! Guess Arima finally wised up, poor guy."

Her face twisted into a picture of anguish, but she didn't forget to lash back. "You jerk! I already feel bad enough! Do you have to come here and rub it in?" Tears glimmered in the corners of her eyes, yet they did not obscure the glow of fighting spirit. She clenched her fists futilely, trembling with anger and distress, like a tree standing against a strong wind. "You think it's fun to laugh at someone when they're down?"

"Hey," Hideaki said weakly, holding up both arms to fend off a possible attack. He felt her despair keenly in the pit of his own stomach, the burn of rejection. He knew first hand how it felt to be ignored and devalued, to be disregarded. To be left like this, by Arima… He didn't know whether to try to comfort her or run for his life. Nervously, he handed her the purse and watched her head tilt toward the sidewalk to hide more emerging tears.

"I really am sorry," he said softly, watching his own feet. "I didn't know. I didn't mean to hurt you like that…all the stuff I did." He rubbed the back of his neck with embarrassment, listening to her sniffle. "And you were right about the girl farm. It was a pretty stupid scheme."

She relaxed her clenched fists at that, looking up at him with reddened eyes and Hideaki tried to smile.

"It's not that I don't like you—except the thing with Arima… I actually thought fighting with you was kind of fun," he admitted.

They watched each other anxiously for a few moments. The crowd outside the theater slowly drifted away. Miyazawa's mouth turned nervously upward, slowly at first, but through her tears shone quiet gratitude warm as the sun on his face. He smiled back.

"Miyazawa!" Arima's voice came down the road. They turned to see him racing up, sneakers slapping cement loudly. "I'm so sorry I'm late," he panted, coming to stop in front of her. "My mom collapsed all of a sudden and I had to call an ambulance…"

Miyazawa nodded and expressed her concern appropriately as Arima babbled on, afraid to even look at her. It seemed obvious to Hideaki that both felt horribly embarrassed and could only react with the awkward, distancing politeness.

"You bastard!" he yelled suddenly, shocking both of them when he caught Arima by the jacket and hauled him against the nearby railing. "Never abandon a girl like that! Leave your mother lying on the cold floor of the kitchen if you have to!"

Arima cried out in protest, twisting nervously and eyeing the long drop into the stairwell below. He was more muscular than Hideaki, but the other boy had the height and leverage to keep him there.

"Apologize!" Hideaki demanded dramatically. "Or your apology will be your death!"

Arima stared at him in shock, eyes wide with disbelief.

"Stop it, Asaba!" Miyazawa shrieked. "It's not necessary! He's going to fall!"

Hideaki shrugged and hauled Arima back to his feet, smiling cheerfully. "Well, if she forgives you, I suppose it's okay."

"Psycho," Arima muttered, brushing off his jacket self-consciously.

Miyazawa caught his arm and led him away from a potential fight. "Are you okay?" she asked, throwing Hideaki an accusing glance. "You know, that movie looked kind of dumb anyway. Maybe we could get some ice cream?"

Sighing, Hideaki watched them walk away, the tension severely lessened. Arima's hand slid down to catch Miyazawa's shyly. She turned back to give Hideaki a thoughtful look. "You want to come too, Hide-baka?"

Arima rolled his eyes in resignation. "He'll only cause trouble, you know."

"I heard that!" Hideaki protested, breaking into an eager jog to catch up with them.

-

They looked good together—everyone in school said it. Miyazawa made the blackness in Arima's eyes disappear. She made him relax and smile and laugh out loud. Hideaki had never been able to do that. His hi-jinks had elicited a wry smile or two, but Arima had never seemed actually happy so much as politely amused.

He remembered the first time he had seen Arima really smile, eating lunch out on the grass, all three of them, nibbling at sandwiches in the dappled light of the trees. Miyazawa had recounted a story about her sisters and their energetic dog, waving her hands and mimicking facial expressions. Eyes on her face, Arima began to grin, a real muscle-stretching, teeth-gleaming, eye-crinkling smile that transformed his face with something Hideaki had never seen before, a different sort of beauty than his mysterious gazes or cold anger, a normal, wonderful, _real_ happiness that changed his entire image.

Arima had helped Miyazawa step out of her obsessive, egomaniac behavior…somewhat. And in return, Miyazawa had helped Arima become human, a flawed, emotional, feeling human who couldn't be perfect all the time. The cold, glittering ice-boy had melted into something even more beautiful. Arima got frustrated and annoyed when he felt like it and said what he thought and laughed like he really meant it. Arima was human after all. Arima was in love.

But if Hideaki thought he had seen the last of the haunting darkness in Arima's eyes, he soon realized he was dead wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

As the two lovebirds began to spend more and more time together, Hideaki found himself drifting away from them. Sure, they still invited him to eat together and go places occasionally, but they seemed so wrapped up in each other the entire time that he soon felt like an observer, a voyeur looking through a window at something he could never have. It hurt a little, but he couldn't see why. He still spent time with Arima, but Arima was simply happier with Miyazawa.

Gradually the weather grew warmer and Hideaki went to the beach three times a week to wade through the cold waves, his body board under one arm. The sand shifted beneath his feet and the salt dried sticky on his legs. Girls in fuchsia bikinis waved at him, their small breasts bobbing beneath the bright fabric.

"You're wasting your time out there," Arima said when he saw Hideaki at school. "Why aren't you studying for exams?" His finger pressed firmly against the brown skin of Hideaki's nose. His eyes glared, close to Hideaki's own.

"Well, you're spending all your time with your girlfriend," Hideaki complained. "Why can't I have some fun too?"

"I'm also studying," Arima insisted. "I know how to balance my time and you obviously don't. You can have your fun after your scores start going up."

"Lucky girl," Hideaki teased. "She has the most responsible man in the world." He lifted both hands to his face and sighed theatrically. "I want to go on a date with Arima too! Why can't I come?"

"Stop it," Arima grumbled. "I'm definitely not the most interesting person to be with. I'm surprised she isn't bored with me yet."

Hideaki stopped to look at him in disbelief, realizing Arima meant what he said. "Well, if she ever gets tired of you, my door is always open," he said, grinning. "I'll make you feel better, Soichiro!"

-

He woke in the early morning to the swishing sound of water against tile. Yawning, Hideaki sat up and surveyed his surroundings from his position on the extra futon laid out beside Arima's bed. By now he knew the room well, from the short table and its tatami mats to the wall lined with bookshelves holding a lot of boring-looking Chinese titles. Arima liked things simple, but he said the books kept him company when he had nothing else to do.

Standing, Hideaki moved to pull a shirt over his head, walking casually into the bathroom. Arima's voice drifted from behind the shower curtain. "I can heat up the bath, if you want."

Hideaki looked at the tube of toothpaste lying neatly on the spotless sink. The paste in it was evenly distributed. "Nah," he replied, "I'm fine with a shower." He opened up the tube and squeezed it from the top, squirting out a smiley face in the basin of the sink. _Arima will kill me for this_, he thought perversely, _but it's just too damn perfect_.

"I can always join you in there, to conserve water, of course," he said loudly, trying to keep his voice from cracking with laughter.

The shower curtain pulled back unexpectedly and he got a glimpse of Arima's smooth shoulders shining with water, dark hair clinging to his face.

"Get out of the damn bathroom if you've got nothing to do, baka." The curtain slid back into place. Hideaki drew in breaths of steam-filled air, the moisture seeping into his skin.

"And don't you dare touch my toothpaste."

Smirking, Hideaki raised a hand and traced words with the toothpaste on his finger onto the steam-covered surface of the mirror: _Arima, you have a nice ass!_

He left the bathroom quickly, shutting the door behind him, and waited gleefully for Arima to exit the shower and start cursing at him.

Hideaki busied himself with making ramen in the big, clean kitchen, waiting for Miyazawa's arrival. Arima emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed and glowering darkly. He had chased Hideaki around in a towel until the taller boy managed to escape to the kitchen.

His dark mood vanished momentarily when he went to answer the door and let Miyazawa in, but he sent a warning look toward Hideaki, currently occupied with chopping up vegetables for the ramen.

"All alone, huh?" said Miyazawa, sounding nervous. She spotted Hideaki then, and stared in disbelief.

"Would you like some barley tea?" he asked graciously, reaching up to wipe some sweat from his brow.

Arima rubbed furiously at his hair with a white towel. "You don't have to entertain my guests for me!" He tossed the towel aside and continued to glare, hair standing up in crazy spikes.

"Eat this ramen," Hideaki requested cheerfully. "It's good for your body to have hot things in the summer." He set the tray before Arima, proud of his attractive cooking.

"Wow, he makes a great wife, doesn't he?" Miyazawa said, giggling.

"No, he doesn't!" Arima protested. "But he always talks like that, the moron." He rapidly shoveled the noodles into his mouth with chopsticks, continuing to glare. "What kind of wife leaves obscene messages on your mirror?"

"Eh?" Miyazawa raised both eyebrows.

"Asaba thinks it's funny to mock me and…write stuff." Arima blushed involuntarily, remembering the words.

"Hey," Hideaki protested. "I wasn't mocking; I really do think you have a nice ass."

Miyazawa choked on a sip of tea and nearly dropped her cup. "Asapin!" she sputtered.

"Is the tea too hot?" Hideaki asked innocently. Arima shook his chopsticks threateningly in Hideaki's direction. He patted his girlfriend on the back, pushing aside his bowl of ramen.

"Don't you like my cooking?" Hideaki whined.

Arima gave him another harsh look. "Nothing a man cooks tastes good."

"Waaah!"

Miyazawa echoed Hideaki's protests more articulately. "There are a lot of male chefs out there!"

"But he isn't one of them," Arima stated firmly.

"Well, it's pretty surprising that you can relax like this on a make-up day, Asapin," she said, turning to Hideaki. "You must have been studying more than I thought to pass all your exams."

"Huh?" Hideaki looked at her blankly. "That's today? But I failed nearly every subject."

They stared at him with twin expressions of horror that made him slightly afraid. Within seconds he found himself pushed violently out the door, cries of _'You idiot!'_ and '_What the hell are you doing here?'_ ringing in his ears.

_Well, I guess that means they care,_ he thought bewilderedly.

-

Tension crackled like static electricity. Hideaki felt his hair stand on end. Somewhere along the way, Arima and Miyazawa had gotten into their first serious lover's quarrel and the result was obvious. Sitting between them on the grass, he observed the glint of Arima's tight eyes and the set of Miyazawa's stubborn chin.

"Not going to tell me, eh?"

He had thought the whole mess with possessive little Shibahime Tsubasa had been settled, but apparently something else had come up and it looked high time for Hideaki to loosen the air once again.

"Take a look at this," he said softly to Miyazawa, withdrawing a photo from its plastic protector in his pocket. "You're very lucky to get a glimpse of my treasure."

Miyazawa took the photo of the delightfully sweet young Arima and stared, blushing with happiness. Hideaki heard Arima's enraged shriek as he jumped to his feet.

"You promised never to show anyone that!" he protested. "It's embarrassing!"

"It's adorable," Miyazawa countered, pulling away from the pair of them. "And I'm going to keep it for myself."

"No!" they both cried. Hideaki resented the loss of the photo keenly, even though she probably deserved it more than he did. "My treasure…" he moaned.

"It's mine now," Miyazawa declared, tucking the photo into her bra to keep it safe.

Arima blushed and Hideaki stared, his sense of loss temporarily overwhelmed by his admiration of her sneaky tactics. The bra equaled the ultimate sanctuary. Any boy who violated it in order to obtain his goal risked almost certain suspension.

Miyazawa's eyes narrowed thoughtfully and she reached into her folder. "I'll give you this one in return, Arima."

Hideaki stared over Arima's shoulder at the photo of a determined-looking young Miyazawa, brandishing a straw basket while dressed as a bandit. Arima blinked.

"Oh, I have one of those," Hideaki boasted, withdrawing his own picture of himself at the tender age of three, sitting on the lap of a female cousin, completely surrounded by smiling girls and looking very happy about it. Arima and Miyazawa seemed less pleased, examining it with skeptical disgust.

"You really started early," Arima muttered.

Hideaki smirked and shrugged casually. He may have pushed himself into disgrace, but by now, the young couple had completely forgotten their anger with each other.

-

Too soon, summer arrived, and Hideaki discovered that Arima would be gone for weeks, practicing for and attending the inter-high kendo tournament. He watched Arima hold Miyazawa inside an empty classroom, head bent against hers, eyes closed. A curtain blew like a veil around them, shutting the rest of the world away.

Hideaki stayed up late folding little bits of paper, changing pure, smooth squares of paper into awkward, angular creations. He spent almost every night at Arima's house and wrote more messages on the mirror during Arima's showers. _Arima, kendo champions are always compensating for something. Arima, don't forget to eat your vegetables and protein. Arima, that captain of yours will jump you the first chance he gets._

When it came time to say goodbye Hideaki offered up his 1,000 paper cranes for good luck and promised to guard Miyazawa in her boyfriend's absence.

"Like I'd trust you," Arima grumbled. "You'd better not make a move on her, Asapin."

"We're only going swimming," Hideaki told him slyly. "Can I help it if she's seduced by my bare chest and gleaming skin shining like gold in the hot summer sun?"

Arima smacked him with his gym bag, for a comment like that, but Hideaki was almost expecting it. When Arima treasured someone like Miyazawa, he would have killed himself before he gave her up to anyone. It was this desperate love that made Hideaki a little frightened. Miyazawa had given Arima the life and freedom he needed so badly, but she also made him incredibly fragile, a slave at the mercy of his violent raw emotions.

-

"Do you think…maybe…she'll find someone else when I'm gone?" Arima asked softly.

Hideaki chewed his pocky, offering the box to Arima. "Someone besides you? Impossible," he scoffed. "No one could leave Arima Soichiro after seeing him smile."

"Hn." Arima lifted a chocolate covered stick to his lips, watching the light sift through the leaves outside the window. The pocky stick crunched between his teeth.

"Do you know what it's like to be in love, Asaba?"

Hideaki stopped chewing. He looked at the confident dash of labeling on the cardboard box. His thumb had creased the enticing photo of the luscious chocolate and a rip in the paper cut the words in half.

"Nah," he said. Because, he wasn't, of course… 

Arima sighed and reached down to take the box of pocky from Hideaki, cool fingers bushing the back of his hand.

…_in love._

"You'll find the right one someday," Arima assured him, uncharacteristically sympathetic, "and you won't be able to give her up."

Through the window, the trees continued to sway subtly in the summer breeze. Arima stood dark in the falling light, his black hair brushing the back of his neck as his head tipped up to the ceiling.

"They say you're supposed to let go of someone if you really love them," Hideaki said, barely above a whisper. He tried to make it sound teasing, but his voice carried a hint of resignation. His hands opened and closed, unable to touch the friend who sat so near.

Arima lowered his head slowly, eyes half closed. "I'll never let her go."

-

Time seemed to crawl by that summer. Hideaki went to the beach three times a week and watched the bronzed girls stretched out in the sun like exotic drying fruits. The scorching heat burned his skin, and the cold salt of the water rushed against his face as he rode the waves beating against his long legs. For a short time, he could lose himself in the sand and sea, but reality always came back to ache.

Sometimes he saw Miyzawa shopping with a group of cheerful girls, little Tsubasa clinging to her arm. They invited him to a karaoke outing where he dazzled them all with his talented renditions of Bon Jovi and Gackt. The only girl he felt wary about was Tsubaki Sakura, the tomboy who possessed an eye for pretty girls that rivaled his own.

On evenings, he tried to read the books Arima lent him, dry historical novels with their tales of samurai and shoguns. He tried to imagine what Arima thought when he turned the pages, picturing slender fingers on the yellowed paper with words describing the friendship of the two warriors.

_Mizu no morasanu naka da_, he read. _So close that water would not leak between them_.

His dad called in the morning, voice tight with controlled emotion. He wondered why, if Hideaki had tried so hard to get into such a good school, couldn't he score better on his midterm exams? Hideaki laughed a little, which only made his father angrier, voice scraping unevenly against strained vocal cords.

"You're just like Arima," Hideaki said, without thinking. His father didn't know who that was. "A friend. He's at the top of the class, always telling me to study…"

Suddenly, Hideaki felt very unhappy and tired. His throat felt dry and his skin itched with healing sunburn. Holding the phone to his ear, he leaned on his bed and watched a spider crawl up the dusty wall. His father continued to speak.

"Yeah," Hideaki said once, and then, "Bye."

He picked up a shoe and held it over the spider threateningly, but eventually dropped it to the floor with a sigh, unable to summon the killing blow.

Standing decisively, he went to his closet instead, pulling out a light dress shirt and a tight pair of slacks. After he had dressed, brushed his hair, and put on some jewelry, he applied a little light eye makeup and smirked back at his reflection. No more moping tonight.

-

Darkness covered the neighborhood, muffling all noises but the sound of cars revving on the road beyond, and the barking of a dog somewhere up the street. Hideaki stood on the sidewalk outside his apartment building for a few moments, wondering what he wanted. Finally, he headed up the street, toward a livelier section of town.

When he had first obtained his own apartment, he had visited clubs whenever he wanted, grateful to no longer endure his father's lectures and accusing stares. The music and energy and presence of so many young, willing bodies always invigorated him. But since his involvement in Hokuei and his entanglement in the Arima-Miyazawa fiasco, his visits had tapered off.

Nonetheless, the bouncers still remembered Hideaki and greeted him by name when he entered a popular establishment frequented by teens. Descending the metal stairway, he immersed himself in the gauzy, glittering atmosphere, scanning the crowd for potential conquests. His gaze caught on a familiar tall, slim figure.

"Agh! Not you!" he complained, when Tsubaki Sakura saw him. She wore a bright Chinese tunic over black slacks with simple, comfortable-looking sandals. Through her short wings of raven-back hair, he caught the glint of red earrings. Hideaki grudgingly admitted to himself that she actually looked slender and pretty, in a mysterious, androgynous way.

"Well, if it isn't the local gigolo," she teased. "Should we ignore him, Aya?" Hideaki's eyes went to the girl at her side. Aya was the writer of the group and one rarely saw her in any other position other than hunched over a notebook, scribbling furiously. But she looked surprisingly comfortable, if not a little bored, in her sleeveless sweater and pleated skirt, standing at her friend's side in the crowded club.

"Hey, Asaba," she said in greeting, disregarding Tsubaki's question completely.

"You're both looking very attractive tonight," he complimented smoothly. "Would you ladies like to go get some drinks?"

Tsubaki threw back her head in a sudden burst of laughter that startled Hideaki a little. "Man, you move fast," she said.

"I want a strawberry smoothie," Aya announced calmly. She caught Tsubaki's hand and led her toward the front of the club with Hideaki trailing after. The music pounded in his ears, a good, heavy beat that had the girls on the floor dancing fast. He caught a few gazes and returned them with a welcoming smile, reveling in his own magnetism.

The young woman who prepared the drinks for them wore lavender lipstick and sparkly butterfly clips that winked slyly at Hideaki under the changing lights.

"So, did you come to get girl-watching tips from me?" Tsubaki asked him, grinning.

Hideaki swallowed a mouthful of soda and looked at her with disdain. "You should be the one asking for advice," he informed her. "In the fine art of female appreciation, you are barely a fumbling novice, my dear."

Reaching out, she caught one of his earrings and tugged harshly. "You think you look so hot. Aya, which one of us is more attractive? Me, or this punky loser?"

Aya sipped her smoothie in peace. "You're both idiots," she told them. "But somehow, you look good together."

"What?" Hideaki exclaimed, rubbing at his sore ear. "I wouldn't be caught dead with this she-man!"

"Speak for yourself, asshole," Tsubaki muttered. She turned to the waitress with the butterfly clips. "What do you think, Nori-chan? Is this jerk actually sexually attractive to women?"

Hideaki turned his face to its best angle and lowered his eyes seductively under the gaze of the young woman. She smiled slowly.

"I'd pay for a night with him…in a few years, of course. Have you considered a host job after graduation, little brother?"

"Noriko works in a hostess bar at her other job," Tsubaki told him. "She's probably just so used to drunken old men that she can actually bear to look at you."

"I visit host clubs on my days off," Noriko said. "It's nice, after a long day of fawning over businessmen, to get special treatment from lovely young men vying for each woman's attention. And you're as handsome as any of those boys."

Tsubaki rolled her eyes. "Don't encourage him."

"Is the pay good?" Hideaki asked Noriko.

"If a rich woman chooses you as her _shimeisha_, you could be set for life. Clients have been known to buys cars, apartments, and expensive gifts for their favorite hosts. Lots of them never even sleep with the men; they just enjoy the attention."

Hideaki considered the idea pleasantly. Noriko went to help another customer and Tsubaki sucked down the remainder of her drink in a final noisy slurp, leaning to scan the dance floor appraisingly.

"Well, if you want to sign up as a man-whore after high school, I wish you luck. It's barely ten o'clock and I'm not going to waste the night. Catch you later, Hidebaka." Rising, she moved across the floor into the mass of swaying bodies.

Hideaki frowned and looked sideways at Aya, who continued to savor her strawberry concoction. "Do you dance?"

Aya didn't even bother to answer, but gave him a long, disdainful look. His gaze went back to Tsubaki on the floor, dancing by herself under the colored lights. He couldn't call her movements graceful, but she danced without shame or any sense of self-consciousness. She moved as if she didn't really care who watched or what they thought…and Hideaki noticed more than a few heads turning.

With a sigh, he stood and threaded his way through the crowd to her side. She pretended not to see him at first, but eventually looked him straight in the eye, her mouth curved in a challenging smirk. Falling into the rhythm of her movements, he tried to imitate her loose style without abandoning his own natural grace and charm.

The beat of the music increased and he felt perspiration begin to form underneath his thin shirt. His necklace flipped against his collarbones and brushed his chin. Tsubaki grinned back at him her, face flushed. Under the flashing lights her hair changed colors: red and blue, yellow and purple. Her mouth formed words, but he couldn't hear them over the music.

"What?" he yelled.

She grabbed his shoulder and shouted into his ear. "Don't you dare think I like you, okay?"

"No problem!" he hollered back. "I can't stand you either."

He would have said more—he wanted to remind her who had paid for her drink—but she had already moved away and returned to tossing her long, sun-browned arms into the smoky air, eyes closed, hips swaying to the thunderous beat. She bumped into a boy dancing behind her and didn't even apologize.

Somehow, Hideaki couldn't stop grinning.


	3. Chapter 3

"Wai! Asaba!" two young voices squealed in utmost delight. Hideaki smirked at the sight of a pair of cute little blushing girls, staring up at him in absolute worship.

"You too are even more beautiful than I remember," he told them smoothly, soaking up the adoration.

Miyazawa's father stared angrily, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head. "Who are you and what are you doing with my precious daughters?"

Entering the room, Miyazawa sighed and tried to calm her father. "It's Asaba, Dad. You wouldn't let me go swimming with him so I invited him here."

The flustered man continued to glare, hands nearly shaking with rage. "Oh course I wouldn't let you go with a boy like him! Look at that blonde hair. Look at those earrings! Boys like him only want one thing from my pure, innocent daughters."

Yukino seemed to ignore her father easily, directing Hideaki to sit on the couch where her two younger sisters could admire him all they wanted, bringing comic books and childish drawings for his desirable attention. Their mother looked up from her ironing to get a glimpse of him.

"You must be Mrs. Miyazawa," he said, turning the charm on full blast, "If you don't mind me saying so, it's no surprise that you have such lovely daughters. If only I had managed to meet you before your husband."

It made his entire day to watch her blush wildly as the young father roared around the house in a resentful rage, his face flushed red as the inside of a pomegranate.

"You're looking kind of thin," Yukino observed, watching him drink the juice offered by her blissful sisters. "And you're really sunburned now."

Hideaki shrugged. "I've been spending a lot of time at the beach, I guess, and I don't feel like eating much lately."

"Missing Arima, huh?" She smiled softly.

"Maybe," he said, a little defensively. "But you seem fine, doing all that stuff with all your friends."

Yukino leaned against the back of the couch. "Yeah, I've had fun with them, but that doesn't mean I don't wish Arima was here, that I don't wake up sad because I know I can't see him every day." She blinked and looked down at the floral print. "Sometimes when I hear his voice on the phone, it's almost like I can feel him, like he's really there and I can just reach out and pull his arms around me…" She sighed. "I thought I could be fine without him, but it hurts more than I ever imagined."

"He calls you a lot?" Hideaki asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"No," she replied distantly, "Just sometimes."

"Hmm," he murmured. His tongue burned with acid jealousy. There was nothing else to say.

-

He cooked ramen that night but couldn't make himself eat more than two bites. The savory sauce turned bitter in his mouth and the noodles felt uncommonly slimy. _Nothing a man cooks tastes good._

A phone rang loudly in the empty apartment.

"Hello."

"Asaba." The voice sounded low and soft.

"Eh, Arima?" He tried desperately not to drop the phone and not stutter. Silence stretched on the other end.

"Are you okay, Arima?" he asked awkwardly, chewing on a lip.

"I'm…" the voice trailed off a little. "I wish I could see her."

The hard plastic of the phone dug into his ear. "Don't worry; I swore I'd take care of Yukinon and you'll see her in a few days, safe and sound."

"I know," Arima said, his voice breaking slightly, "But it's just so…empty here without her. I want…"

"Yeah, I know," Hideaki assured him.

Silence. Arima seemed to be breathing harder and then he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Asaba. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Hideaki felt a sharp stab of loneliness in his chest. "It's okay. You call me whenever you want and I'll listen."

"Um," Arima murmured, "Could you just talk for a while about something? I need to listen right now."

Two breaths and Hideaki sighed. "Okay… Well, the other day I saw this girl on the beach in a little green bikini and I wondered how she managed to keep it on. Did she glue it to her skin or was she just lying _really_ still to make sure it didn't fall off? I wonder if they make swimsuits that you can just stick on yourself to look good when you sunbathe. You could just peel off little sticker tabs and stick it on your skin like velcro. It's a good idea, don't you think? We should market it if no one else has."

He babbled on for nearly half an hour, talking about Miyazawa's insane father, her cute sisters, the energetic little dog, his own father, the new games at the arcade, the dusty old books, and anything else that popped into his head until finally Arima thanked him and said goodbye, in a much steadier voice.

"I miss you so much I'll die before you get home," Hideaki declared melodramatically, "like the maidens of old awaiting the return of their warriors."

"Then don't expect me to come to your funeral," Arima grumbled.

-

Arima returned a day before he said he would and Hideaki didn't even learn about it until later. It turned out that he spent the whole evening with Yukino and the next day too. Hideaki greeted him enthusiastically and they settled into the familiar routine of half-serious arguments and long, content silences.

Every day Arima spent more time with his girlfriend and even Yukino's gaggle of friends began to refer to him as 'her husband.' It seemed an apt title, Hideaki thought, as he watched the way Arima touched Yukino so gently and couldn't seem to keep from smiling whenever he saw her. Occasionally, Hideaki noticed the path Arima's eyes traced over her slender body, the pure, unselfish yearning in his focused gaze.

"Have you ever…gone far with a girl?" he asked Hideaki awkwardly as they leaned against the wall, sipping their sodas.

Hideaki nearly choked on a fizzy swallow, trying not to laugh and sputter at the blush on Arima's face.

"Uh, I guess you must be pretty experienced," Arima mumbled, looking at the cold can in his hand.

"Well…" Hideaki drawled, "I'm no virgin but I wouldn't exactly say one time makes a sex god."

Arima's head jerked up into a stare. "Only once? With who?"

Raising his can for another sip, Hideaki smirked. "Don't look down on me for this, but actually she was my babysitter."

He thought Arima's head might explode any minute.

"_What the…you…!"_

"Eh," Hideaki sighed. "I was fourteen and my dad thought I still needed someone to look after me when both my parents were gone, so he paid this college girl who worked in his office to stay at our house." He grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. "Needless to say, when he found us together, he decided that I was old enough to be on my own."

"Oh." Arima looked at his soda as if it were a foreign object. "Hn."

"Yeah." Hideaki took another drink. "But I've been pretty careful with girls since. They are my lovely, innocent little lambs who should remain eternally pure and unspoiled. I love them all, but not the same way you way you feel about Yukino."

He met Arima's vulnerable gaze steadily. "You love her, right?" On his tongue the soda felt suddenly nauseatingly sweet. "Take a chance, Soichiro. Go for it, you kendo stud, you!"

Blushing furiously, Arima smacked him on the side of his head and he dropped his soda, ducking and laughing. But he didn't really want it anyway.

-

Much as Yukino adored her beautiful Soichiro, she also seemed quite attached to her recently acquired group of remarkable girls who followed her around and commented loudly on everything around them. At first Arima smiled when he saw them together: cute little Tsubasa, tomboy Sakura, bookish Aya, confident Maho, and sweet Rika all gathered around Yukino like a flock of birds on a rice field.

Lately though, his smile seemed strangely stiff, and his eyes hid emotion automatically. Hideaki tried to take his mind off the darkness by inviting himself to Arima's house once again using the pretense of cooking dinner, in the absence of Arima's parents, while the dark haired boy did paperwork for the student council.

"My dad is such an asshole," Hideaki complained, breaking stiff noodles to fit in the boiling water. "Thinks that studying is all a person needs in life." He pulled a wooden spoon from the counter. "You like miso flavor, right?"

Arima grunted, scribbling information across another form. His hand moved with rapid determination.

"How old is this calamari?" Hideaki asked, poking at a package from the fridge.

"I have no idea," Arima said without looking up, a gleam of sharpness in his voice. "I don't buy the damn groceries."

Sighing, Hideaki watched the fridge door close with a dull thud. "You know, no matter how many friends Yukino makes, she'll always be crazy about you."

Impassive, Arima continued to fill out the paper before him leveling the stack methodically. "I have nothing against them. She's happy. So I'm happy." His jaw twitched slightly. "Besides, she doesn't belong to me…or anything like that."

The faucet dripped idly in the background. Hideaki moved to the table and sat in the chair next to Arima, leaning his head against the other boy's firm shoulder, the fabric of the shirt warm against his cheek. "I'll never leave you, kid."

"Like I care," Arima grumbled. But he didn't make any move to push the fair head from its comfortable place on his shoulder. "Your dad is right," he told Hideaki sternly. "You really should study more if you don't want to end up working at a gas station or something."

"Don't mind," Hideaki murmured, trying not to breathe or move too much. "I'll ask you for money when you're some big shot executive."

He could almost feel Arima scowl. "I'm going to be a doctor or a manager of the hospital," Arima said. "I can't let my family down."

I can't be like them… 

"You won't," Hideaki whispered, listening to the comforting scratch of Arima's pen. His eyelids fluttered drowsily against the fabric of the shirt. He thought he might like to stay like that forever.

The noodles on the stove began to boil over, hissing emphatically.

-

That night Hideaki dreamed.

He wandered a church with huge stained glass windows and long halls lit with brilliant sunlight, the edges of everything glowing, ethereal. He found Arima sitting in an alcove, looking away through the splintered colors of the stained glass at something far beyond. His head turned slowly, looking to Hideaki with gentle silence, features blurred with light.

Inexplicably overcome, Hideaki stretched his fingers to catch the other boy's glowing face, almost invisible in the white light surrounding it. Arima's eyes swallowed him whole in their cool darkness. Helplessly, Hideaki tilted his head forward as Arima's arms wrapped around him.

They kissed once, an insubstantial pressure of lips, and Arima dissolved into his flesh in a warm wave of radiant light that suffused his body. Hideaki felt his skin tingle and looked down at the open palms of his hands, his long forearms shining incandescent in the luminous emptiness.

Waking, Hideaki lay sleepless for hours vainly trying to remember every detail, trying to make the contact into something real. But he couldn't remember what Arima really looked like, what the kiss felt like, or why he melted away so silently.

He bunched up the blankets and held them close to his chest, heart beating with dull pain. A bittersweet taste lingered in his mouth.

-

Kendo practice had ended, but no one knew where Arima had disappeared to. Hideaki finally found him, sitting in a space between the lockers and the wall, his knees drawn up to his forehead, both hands covering his eyes. For a moment, the Hideaki could only stare anxiously at the closed off figure of his friend, drowning in the shadow of the lockers.

"Arima," he said, voice unsteady.

No sign of acknowledgment came from the boy tucked against the wall, but after a moment he lifted his face slightly, hands sliding down on his knees, to reveal chillingly blank eyes that regarded Hideaki without emotion.

"What?" he said, voice sharp.

Hideaki shuffled his feet and wiped both palms on his trousers. "Um, are you okay?"

Slowly, Arima unfolded his body and stood. He looked away from Hideaki, face set in stone, remote detachment in his eyes. "I'm fine," he said shortly. Hideaki started to move toward him unsurely, but Arima turned completely and walked away without another word.

Hideaki watched him go, fear stirring in his throat. Picking up the pay phone, he slipped in his yen and dialed Miyazawa's number. Her mother told him that Yukino had gone out with some friends to see a movie. Hideaki groaned.

-

"Yesterday? He went to visit his family, I think," Yukino said, frowning, "Do you think they did something to him…or maybe made him feel guilty?"

Hideaki sighed and covered his eyes. "I don't know what happened. He isn't talking to me, but obviously something about that visit upset him. Do you know anything about his family?"

Yukino bit her lip. "I know they're all mad at his parents and Arima is under a lot of pressure to be perfect. That's what forced him into wearing a mask for so long." She twisted the small ring on her white finger. "But we agreed to give up those masks."

Hideaki shrugged. "I only know that he loathes visiting those people. Maybe they remind him of stuff…I don't know. Maybe something else set him back into ice-boy mode."

Tilting her head, Yukino looked thoughtful. "He seemed fine today. We talked about the books we were going to read over the summer, and he's going to the beach with me and the girls this afternoon…"

"The beach?" Hideaki exclaimed, eyes widening with excitement. "I'm coming too!"

Yukino rolled her eyes. "Fine. Just don't blame me if Tsubaki shovels sand down your shorts or something." She ruffled his hair playfully but he could see traces of worry lingering in her eyes.

Grinning, Hideaki grabbed his bag, checking to see if he needed to return to the apartment for swim shorts. The sun burned high in the sky and the wind blew gently for once. Perhaps the chance to unwind with his girlfriend would drive Arima's dark mood away.

-

Rika and Maho and Aya were all gathered around Yukino as she waded into the waves, squealing at the cold water. Tsubaki watched them possessively, giving Hideaki a smug look that made him distinctly annoyed. _She acts likes she owns them all, that greedy girl!_ He glared back at her until his eye caught a little blonde girl digging by herself in the sand, humming a childish tune under her breath.

Before he could make a move, Arima trotted up to her side, holding a toy squid. "Shibahime, I'll give this to you if you promise to stay away from that perverted old man over there, okay?"

She nodded sweetly. Hideaki seethed. "Perverted? Old?" He chased Arima into the ocean and splashed water at him vainly as the dark-haired boy laughed and danced nimbly away.

"Who's been staring at his girlfriend in that swimsuit all day?" Hideaki growled, "You're calling me perverted?"

"There's nothing wrong with admiring the scenery," Tsubaki declared, sliding her arms around the shoulders of Rika and Yukino with a confident smirk.

"Lesbo," Hideaki muttered under his breath. He was a little afraid the tall, athletic girl _would_ shovel sand down his shorts if she heard him.

He sat on the cold, rough sand near the surf and helped Tsubasa build a sandcastle, under Arima's watchful eye. But as soon as he had erected all the towers she attacked it with a gleeful growl, demolishing all his work in seconds.

"You're an animal!" he complained, hands on hips. "That structure was a work of art, one of my best designs!"

"The best part is knocking it down," she informed him happily, stomping on the wreckage for good measure. "I'll let you destroy the next one."

Carefully extracting himself from that situation, Hideaki turned to the more pleasurable activity of ogling a shirtless Arima, without arousing the suspicions of Miyazawa or Tsubaki. This took great skill and careful sideways glances, but no one had mastered the art of beauty observation like Asaba Hideaki.

Shining with seawater, Arima's normally milky-white skin was tinged soft pink from exposure to the sun. His kendo-ka muscles showed off his light frame to an advantage and his strong, lean body moved through the water with all the awkward grace of youth. At one of Yukino's comments, his face lit up and twisted into another rare, genuine smile. Hideaki wanted to touch the back of his slender neck, catch the sleek, dark head in his hands. But he watched instead as Yukino held Arima's arm and pulled him toward the beach, her lovely young body leading the way. Their bodies knew each other, Hideaki realized, with a sudden shiver.

Sitting to the beach blanket, he brushed the sand and salt water off his skin with a towel, pretending to be more interested in the sand under his toenails. As Yukino and Arima approached his position, Hideaki turned to give Arima a sultry look through his dark sunglasses. "You want to rub some suntan lotion on me with those big, strong hands of yours, Soichiro?"

Arima refused to look at him but he could see the muscled shoulders tighten with embarrassed aggravation.

"Like hell!"

-

The air felt heavy as a wool blanket, smothering the entire city. Hideaki opened a window and sprawled on his bed, sweating and sipping lukewarm tea in the empty apartment. He could hear doors opening and closing and the couple downstairs arguing over dinner. Somewhere a baby cried.

Sometime later, he awoke briefly to the sound of rain on the roof. Cool, clean air drifted in through the window. Smiling with relief, Hideaki pulled a light blanket over his shorts and T-shirt, curling up to enjoy the relief from oppressive summer heat.

When the phone woke him, it was completely dark and rain had started to pool on his windowsill, mixing with the layer of dust that had coated it earlier.

"Hello?" he said groggily, pushing the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Asaba." The voice sounded muffled, as if the person had a cold or been crying.

"Arima?" He sat up, completely awake. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

A slow pause. "No."

Hideaki pulled his cold feet further under the blanket. "Is it Yukino?"

"She's fine. It's me," Arima said, a small, stifled catch of breath in his voice. "We…made love, I guess…and it was fine…it was really good. But it didn't change anything…it didn't change me, I mean."

Hideaki tried to gather his scrambled thoughts. "Are you…?"

"There's something wrong with me!" Arima declared vehemently. "And I can't get rid of it, no matter what I do." His voice trembled slightly. "I thought maybe…being that intimate, that close to her would drive it away…but…after she left, it's still here. It's always here!"

Hideaki drew in his breath, confused and afraid. His numb fingers gripped the phone like a lifeline. "What are you talking about, Soichiro? What won't go away?"

Arima's breath came harshly, in small sobs, and then it stopped suddenly.

"Arima?"

"I wish I had never been born," he said, voice calm and level. "My mother should have killed me when she had the chance. She wanted to."

"Arima!" Hideaki gasped. "That's not—"

"Just talk to me," Arima pleaded, cutting him off, "Just say something, please."

"I'm coming over to your house," Hideaki said, heart racing, "I'm coming right now."

"No!" Arima cried. He was breathing hard again, voice shuddering with each word. "Please, Asaba. Just talk to me like you did before. About nothing."

Shivering, Hideaki pulled his blanket closer. His mind felt blank with fear, but he began to speak…about Tsubasa's toy squid and Tsubaki's closet lesbian secret and the reasons why Pocari Sweat should be the national drink of Japan and all the benefits of eating hot ramen every day.

Eventually Arima seemed to relax again, chuckling softly at one of Hideaki's outrageous statements or sniffing in disgust. "You're an idiot, you know," he told Hideaki.

"But that's why you love me," Hideaki reminded him lightly.

"Yeah. Thanks for talking to me, Asapin. I'll see you at school."

"Okay," the blonde boy said weakly, his pulse racing unexpectedly. The receiver clicked in farewell and Hideaki set down his own phone reluctantly. It was such a simple statement, and of course Arima didn't mean it like that, but he couldn't help running the words like water through his head several hundred times before he could find sleep again.

"…_that's why you love me."_

"_Yeah…"_


	4. Chapter 4

The second semester started without event. Hideaki saw Arima walking with Yukino to class. There was a small smile on his face as he watched her talk enthusiastically, shaking her short, smooth hair for emphasis. The murky emotions that had plagued him seemed to have fled, or simply suffered themselves to be hidden once again inside the quiet boy's calm frame.

Yukino shrieked when she saw Hideaki leaning against the wall, watching them. "Asapin, you look like you've done nothing but lay in the sun all summer!" She tried to give him a disapproving glare but her mouth kept twisting with contained laughter.

Smirking, Hideaki lifted one hand coyly to his face, showing off his ring. His uniform white shirt was loose from his dark pants and the top buttons were undone to reveal a large stretch of his smooth chest, tanned and lightly muscled from his days in the surf.

"Jewelry?" Arima scoffed, noting the band on his finger, the simple chain around his neck, and the three silver rings in his right lobe. "You're going to get in a lot of trouble for—"

Yukino gasped, her eyes jerking to the left. Turning his head, Hideaki saw class advisor Kawashima approaching with a look like death on his face.

"We're model students," Arima hissed. "We can't be seen with you!"

"Asaba Hideaki?" Kawashima asked, voice weary and rough.

"That's me!" Hideaki chirped, forgoing the usual polite reply.

Unexpectedly, Kawashima set a hand on his shoulder and sighed, looking down away from his face. Hideaki watched the advisor with curiosity while Yukino and Arima hyperventilated a few steps away.

Kawashima's voice sounded tired and resigned. "I know you're a good student at heart… But this is a respectable school… please don't go overboard."

"Okay," Hideaki agreed, shrugging. It wasn't as if he started fights or dealt drugs or something. Perhaps the half-open shirt had been a little daring, he mused.

"Work hard and make your parents proud," Kawashima recited without enthusiasm. He nodded to Arima and Yukino before turning to walk away.

"Poor guy," Yukino sympathized. "Dealing with kids like Asapin at his age."

-

After class, Hideaki met Miyazawa and Arima in the hall. They headed toward the lunchroom together to meet with the rest of the lively group.

"I'm starved," Yukino announced, bumping heads with Arima as she reached for the boxed lunch in her book bag. He grinned sheepishly and rubbed his forehead.

"Arg!" Tsubaki complained, waving an anpan at them disdainfully from her position at the table between Maho and Tsubasa. "You're like a pair of newlyweds! I bet a machete couldn't separate you two."

Arima looked a little embarrassed, but Yukino just shrugged and pulled the wrapping off her bento box with a look of anticipation. Hideaki opened his own lunch sack and removed the package of three sweet rolls he had snatched before racing out the door. The night before, he had watched a fashion show instead of doing his history homework and, in his scramble to finish it the next morning, he had only had time to grab the rolls on his way out. Removing one, he bit into its sticky surface and noticed Arima's frown.

"Is that all you brought for lunch?" Arima asked disapprovingly.

"Yeah. Stupid history homework," Hideaki complained. "You want one?"

Arima shook his head, still frowning. "You need more nutrition than that." He picked up his own neatly packaged lunch. "Here, you can share my food."

Hideaki grinned broadly and leaned in, licking his lips teasingly. "Are you going to feed it to me yourself?"

"No," Arima answered sharply, glaring to cover a light blush at his friend's close proximity and insinuation.

Hideaki tilted his face toward Arima and lowered his eyelashes seductively. "Tell me to say '_ah'_ and take it like a big boy."

Arima refused to back down, but his face colored a bright, fetching pink. "What are you talking about?" He avoided Hideaki's eyes, staring at the table as the other boy caught his hand.

Aya stared openly, Maho looked embarrassed, and Tsubaki lifted her eyebrows in surprised appreciation. "Never thought I'd admire a pair of boys, but you two look _good_ together."

Yukino didn't even bat an eye as she continued to eat. "Yeah, but my food's better." She caught Hideaki's gaze and crossed her chopsticks defensively. "I'm not sharing."

Still slightly red, Arima slid his lunch toward Hideaki and moved to sit closer to Yukino. Hideaki let out a deep, gusty sigh to convey his loneliness and started on the delicious-looking pickled vegetables that Arima's aunt made so well.

"So…um, culture fair's coming up," Arima said quickly. "What are you guys without clubs going to do for it?"

"Catch up on sleep," Yukino replied, earning herself a chopstick poke from her boyfriend. "Maa, I do enough work already. Let's leave it up to the class, I say."

"You don't know what the prizes are, do you?" Arima asked.

She sighed and rolled her eyes playfully. "Okay, so I didn't read the announcement completely. What are they, Mr. Representative?"

Arima reached into his book bag for a folder of papers and rummaged through them until he found the one he wanted. "The club with the most successful attraction will win one of the following:" he read, "…gift certificates for a nice meal, tickets to a destination of the club's choice, _or_ a copy of notes taken by a Tokyo University graduate while he was still at this school."

All around Hideaki, faces lit up as though turned on by a switch as various students spun spontaneous visions in their heads. Miyazawa alone looked as though stars might burst out of her pupils at any moment. Hideaki could almost see the wheels in her head turning: _notes from a top university graduate?_ The ambition so deeply rooted in her soul could not resist.

"What are we waiting for, Class A? Let's get started!" she declared, pounding the table with a fiery enthusiasm that caused several pieces of pickled radish to jump out of the tsukemono dish in front of Hideaki. "The Going-Home Club can win this!"

Hideaki ignored the slice of radish that had fallen into his lap and leaned back into his seat to stretch casually against the wall. "I'm afraid not," he purred, smirking as Yukino's head snapped toward him, "…because Class F is going to take this culture fair by storm with its marvelous performances of the fantastic _Asaba Hideaki Date Show_."

"Gah!" Yukino's eyes went a little wild as she considered the implications of this statement. The majority of female population in the room stared at him in worshipful awe, their faces pink with anticipation. Casting frantically about, Yukino clutched Arima's arm and fastened a gaze of hopeful desperation on his features. "Arima will do a date show for us, won't you?"

He detached her quickly, backing away. "I'm with the kendo club, remember?"

"They're baking desserts," Hideaki reminded her helpfully.

"Do you want our class to _lose_?" Yukino pleaded, appealing to him with fanatically bright eyes.

"No, but I'm still not doing it," he said, looking mortified at the thought. _It would go completely against Arima's character to show off and try to impress people with his looks_, Hideaki thought. _Luckily that's not the case with me!_

The girls in the room looked rather crestfallen at Arima's refusal. Hideaki felt vaguely sorry for them.

-

Miyazawa sat on the bench outside the P.E. building hunched over a notebook and looking somewhat stressed. Hideaki took a moment to observe her alone for once, taking in her small form in the school uniform. Her smooth chestnut hair obscured the shape of her face, but he could see bright caramel-colored eyes and a small, red mouth softened in her silence. _She's cute_, he decided, _but not gorgeous_.

Yukino presented the attractive picture of a diligent young high school girl, and he could see what attracted Arima. It was less easy to see why Arima stayed with her—that was, until you had seen them together, seen the glow that sufficed them when they thought they were alone, warm and soft and private, like a shared secret. Hideaki had never been good at keeping secrets.

"Oi," he said, walking up to her. "Arima's still in P.E.?"

She squinted up at him distractedly. "Yeah, he should be out any minute. I'm just hiding from Aya right now."

"Oh." He didn't ask, knowing she would tell him.

Yukino grimaced, gripping her notebook. "She wrote this awesome play for the fair…but she expects me to play the lead role in front of all those people. Me! It's a disaster waiting to happen."

"…because we all know you have no acting experience," he teased, stepping back quickly in case she decided to whack him with the notebook.

"Argh! You too?" she grumbled. "I play the role of model student, _not_ the emotionally conflicted futuristic scientist that she expects me to learn."

"Think of it as a career challenge," he advised playfully, grinning at the image of Yukino as a snobby professional actress. "You could play the role of a lawyer and skip law school entirely. Plenty of people would pay for a fake lawyer and you'd save a lot of money." The notebook flung toward his shoulder told him she was not amused.

"Hey!" Arima's voice called from across the yard. He approached them quickly, changed back into the regular uniform after basketball in the gym. His hair looked slightly damp from the shower. Beside him walked a taller, dark-skinned boy with an open, handsome face.

"Meet Tonami," Arima said, smiling. "We went to junior high together and he just transferred back here. I thought he might want to study with us sometime."

Yukino and Hideaki tried not to stare. They had never seen Arima so friendly with any of the other students. Hideaki blinked at the way Arima laid a companionable hand on the towering boy's shoulder. Tonami looked just a little too flushed for being out of practice for at _least_ a quarter of an hour, he decided.

"Sounds good to me," Yukino said, looking a little dazed.

Arima grinned. "This is my girlfriend, Miyazawa," he told Tonami. "She's at the top of the class."

"Pleased to meet you," Yukino chirped, giving him her happy-puppy face.

Hideaki noticed the skeptical look in Tonami's gaze and he nearly laughed out loud. He had probably seen the chucked notebook too.

"And this is Asaba," Arima said, gesturing casually toward Hideaki. "But you don't have to remember him."

"Hey!" Hideaki protested. "Are you trying to replace me, Arima?" He threw both arms around Arima's neck and wailed theatrically. "Can he cook ramen like I can or rub sunscreen lotion on your back? Does he know your ticklish spots?"

"What?" Arima cried. Tonami's mouth dropped open and his gaze went to Yukino but she only rolled her eyes and poked Arima in the side to get his attention.

"You didn't finish your bento today," she said, uncovering the lunch with a pair of chopsticks.

"I wasn't hungry," Arima explained.

"Eat your lunch, silly, or your beautiful hair will fall out!" She stabbed a sushi roll toward his mouth and Arima dodged it agilely. "Do I have to force you?"

Hideaki grabbed both his arm and held them behind his back so that Yukino could push the roll into her boyfriend's mouth. Arima sputtered at the intrusion and then chewed it sullenly, glaring at them both. Yukino wiped her forehead with a grin.

"The abuse game never gets old," she said with satisfaction.

"I know," Hideaki agreed.

Tonami just stared at them with the kind of uncomfortable scrutiny one usually reserves for mutated lab rats, full of curiosity, confusion, and a little bit of fear.

-

Thankfully, Tonami Takefumi did seem more tolerant than Hideaki had expected and he soon found a place in their little group, although he seemed to have developed an uncomfortable tendency of getting into arguments with Miyazawa.

"He called me a strange little girl," she told Hideaki resentfully, "and asked me what Arima could see in me. Just like you did!"

"The man has a good sense of perception," Hideaki remarked. Arima laughed lightly and avoided Yukino's death glare.

"But he did ask me one weird thing," she said, biting her lip. "Why does he care about Tsubaki knowing about him?"

"Ask the fellow himself," Hideaki said, spotting Tonami on the stairs. The dark-skinned boy stood on the landing between flights, looking out the window with a pensive, almost angry expression on his striking face.

When they approached him about it, he wasn't offended at all, but whipped out a picture of himself at an early age as quickly as they had that day on the grass. Hideaki stared at the photo of the chubby child in disbelief while Miyazawa listened rapturously to his tale of revenge.

"I worked my ass off to become what I am," Tonami said passionately. "Exercising, dieting, studying constantly…"

Miyazawa practically glowed with excitement. "And no one understands the effort and the passion it takes to become the best. I would get up at five in the morning to go running every school day."

"Me too!" Tonami exclaimed. "I run five kilometers every morning."

"Hah! Try ten," she countered, flashing her teeth.

_God, you are both insane,_ Hideaki thought, shaking his head slightly in amusement. He glanced at Arima to see if the other boy felt the same, and experienced a sudden chill run up his spine.

Arima wasn't looking at the joking, enthusiastic pair who argued playfully in front of him. His cold, empty gaze stared beyond them, away from them, at something invisible and distant. Hideaki's vision flashed back to the image of the silent boy by the stone pillar with eyes blacker than ice water in the night.

Beautiful, unreachable, alone.

-

He had thought Miyazawa couldn't see it, but she did. She sat Arima down and wrapped her arms around him and told him she loved him more than anyone. Hideaki listened to Arima's calm breathing and Yukino's soft voice from his place in the hallway. "I like feeling your head on my chest," she said.

He had thought it would hurt to finally face this, to realize that Arima's happiness depended so completely on this one person. But Hideaki felt a strange sense of calm in the bitterness, a feeling of relief and hope. If Miyazawa could hold Arima together, then they could both survive this crazy life somehow. She, who had grown up in a supportive family and a happy home, could show Arima what it meant to be loved so much easier than Hideaki could even comprehend attempting.

He had no idea what to do with his feelings for Arima, or with his trust in Yukino. He could only stand by them and protect them as much as possible. Despite Yukino's assurances for her boyfriend, Hideaki caught him watching her several times as she spoke with Tonami in the halls. The two of them had a strong sense of chemistry and connection that disturbed even Hideaki. He knew she acted playful and friendly with everyone close, but that fierce, exuberant energy had always been directed toward himself, Arima, or one of the girls, never at an outside male. And their meetings could only increase as students spent more and more time at school, preparing for the fair.

Hideaki had plenty to do with his own show, but he also volunteered to help create the scenery for the play that the girls of the Going-Home Club decided to put on. Miyazawa had finally embraced her lead role and studied the script with her usual intensity. Tsubaki had ballet club but Maho was there running lines with Yukino, and Tsubasa also sat around eating sweets and playing with various trinkets people gave her when she wasn't in the script. And of course there was Rika, who Hideaki had grown to rely on more than he realized. At first he thought she was simply the quiet, placid girl in the back, but like most of Miyazawa's posse, she had depth beneath the pretty face that he could hardly have predicted.

With the fair approaching, some of the students came in to school at odd hours to work on the paintings they planned on displaying at the festival. Later in the afternoon, Hideaki visited to art room to touch up his own project: the posters for the play. He didn't notice another presence entering the room until the girl came up behind him.

"It's so…subtle," she said, voice glowing with admiration. Hideaki turned to see Sena Rika's soft smile. She touched the paper lightly, tracing the dark stroke of an eyelash on the face of the futuristic scientist with Yukino's face.

"Thank you," Hideaki answered, preening. Normally this type of compliment would signal him to begin flirting outrageously, but he knew Rika from the time she spent as part of Miyazawa-tachi. Although she embodied his ideal of the beautiful, innocent schoolgirl, she had never fawned over him or expressed anything other than genuine kindness and respect for him as well as everyone. Somehow he knew his charm would only embarrass her.

"I wish I could paint this kind of work," Rika sighed. "It's very simple, but beautiful. I would never have expected you to express yourself like this."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hideaki demanded, furrowing his brow in mock outrage.

Blushing, she tried to backpedal. "Ano, I didn't mean it like that! It's just… you're such a bright, vibrant person… I really expected your painting to be a little more… showy, I suppose."

"Hm," he sniffed, but then cracked a smile to let her know he teased. "Didn't think me capable of sensitivity, is that it?"

"No…" she denied, pink face turning down toward her cute oxford shoes. "You're incredibly talented, Asaba-kun."

"So are you," he said honestly. Her painting of a sleeping kitten leaned on its easel a few seats away. The small details in the art amazed Hideaki. He could only imagine the patience and skill it took.

"But I can't draw people the way you do," she admitted with a sigh. "Just flowers and houses and little animals. My portraits look like cartoons." She glanced down at his brown paper portfolio propped against the wall. "Did you ever finish that sketch of Arima-kun practicing kendo?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, twisting his mouth slightly. "Ah, no. Arima doesn't want to model for me, so I can only draw from my memory or try to sneak up during practice and catch him during a pose. It just never turns out right."

"I think it's harder to draw people that you know," Rika mused, rubbing the ends of her hair together thoughtfully. "It's really difficult to capture them the way they are."

Hideaki blinked at the light from the window that outlined her form like a halo. "I don't really know Arima," he said abruptly. "I don't think anyone does."

She looked at him curiously. "Surely Yukinon has him figured out by now; they're always together."

Turning his face away from her, he studied the pattern of black words on the textured paper. The sun enhanced the contrast between the white of the paper and the dark paint. His mouth relaxed into a loose smile.

Rika smiled hesitantly back. Her hair shone golden brown in the light that ringed her upper body.

"Would you like to go out sometime?" he said at last, not looking away from the painting. "We could check out the art films at that old theater."

She blushed again and clasped her wrists awkwardly with both hands. "Um… I'm very flattered, Asaba-kun, but there's kind of… somebody, right now."

Hideaki uttered a deep sigh and pretended to wipe tears away. "Alas! Another hath beaten me to the fair lady."

"…." Rika twisted her wrists harder and dropped her head lower, so that her long hair covered her flushed face. "Well… no. I'm just…"

Hideaki saw the distress in her sunken shoulders and understood. "…waiting?" he supplied quietly.

Her light-brown head nodded awkwardly, still turned to the floor.

"I understand," he said earnestly, trying to comfort her. "A lot of people are still waiting for someone to wake up." Cautiously, her face tipped up to him again. "Some people finally do wake up to how wonderful you are," he continued. "And some people don't. If he never notices you, isn't it time to move on?"

The sudden determination in her gentle eyes surprised him. "Sometimes you just don't have a choice," she told him, voice strong with conviction. "There is no one else for me. I can wait forever. Even if he hates me, even if he loves someone else, I can't stop… and I can't stop these feelings, but even more… this knowing who he is, who I am makes me so aware when I'm near him… And it's scary being with him, but… but without him…" She sucked in her breath sharply.

Listening silently, Hideaki felt the edge of her anguish like a knife, felt himself grasping for something in the hurried, honest words that tumbled from her mouth.

She wiped her eyes with small, slender hands and smiled sheepishly at Hideaki. "Sorry."

"It's okay," he assured her, standing quickly and opening his arms to offer a hug.

Her head fit awkwardly against his collarbone, but she held tightly, sniffling quietly against his shirt.

"You're supposed to be the cheerful one," he grumbled after a little while. She laughed softly and pulled away with a self-conscious gesture.

"You're supposed to be the playboy," she said, not meeting his eyes. "But the person I see you with most is Arima. Sometimes I wonder…if you put up this, ah, personality just to make people like you." She scratched absently at a spot of paint on his chair. Hideaki tried to keep smiling.

"Sometimes I look at you," she said, "and I wonder who you really are. The boy who says he loves all girls but dates none, or the artist who lives alone and paints sad faces—the guy who gives me such mysterious smiles that say, 'Don't go looking into my heart.'"

Hideaki attempted a laugh and his voice scratched uncomfortably in his throat. "I guess that's me: Man of Mystery."

"Hm." Rika bent to pick up her schoolbag and slung it over her shoulder. "Arima used to put up a personality too, but his was a personality of perfection. Maybe that's why you keep trying to understand him—so you can understand yourself."

"Aren't we all lying to ourselves?" he said, watching her walk away.

"Maybe," she agreed, giving him a final fleeting smile as she walked through the door. "I'll see you later, Asaba-kun."


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Er, delayed yes. I have many excuses, none of which you will care about. For the moment, just be grateful that I got this out at all. My momentum has been severely lacking but I am still writing, I swear. (Just don't expect good writing.)

**Chapter 5**

After his last class, Hideaki went looking for Arima and found him by the bushes outside the P.E. building. The dark-haired boy was staring into the foliage with an expression of confused dismay.

"Soichiro?" Hideaki asked worriedly. "Are you okay?"

Slowly, Arima turned and walked toward him, head down. Hideaki watched him curiously, sensing depression but no dark, violent emotions.

"Hey— are you blushing?" he asked suddenly.

Arima touched the back of his neck self-consciously. "Is it… normal for girls to touch each other?"

Hideaki blinked rapidly, surprised. "Uh, girls can be more touchy-feely than guys. You mean like hugging?"

"When I walked in there, Miyazawa had her hand on Maho's," Arima said, still looking at the ground. "And Maho's hand was on Miyazawa's… breast."

Hideaki grinned, picturing Arima's reaction. "They could be teasing or comparing bra sizes. Girls do stuff like that. They have no shame. You know Yukino, right?"

Arima lifted his head to see if Hideaki was joking. He looked much more relieved.

"Or, they could be doing a little afternoon experimentation. Ah, Hokuei High locker room lesbians."

"Asaba!" Arima protested. He made a half-hearted swiping gesture with his hand that the other boy dodged easily.

"Do you seriously think Maho is interested in Yukino?" Hideaki scoffed. "She has an older boyfriend, you know."

"I know," Arima said. "It's just weird seeing them like that."

They had started walking back toward the main building. Hideaki tilted his head toward the boy beside him. "You should hear the stories about what goes on in the all-girls schools."

Arima suppressed a smile and pretended to cover his now-pink ears with both hands. "I don't want to hear your perverted gossip, idiot."

"I'm just the innocent messenger," Hideaki insisted. "They're the nasty perverts who've polluted the minds of so many pure school boys."

Arima chuckled despite himself. "Pure? After all the things you say?"

"Vagina!" Hideaki hissed dramatically and this time Arima couldn't stop from laughing. He kept walking beside the taller boy but his frame shook with uncontrollable, contagious mirth. Hideaki bent his head toward Arima's red face and they laughed like immature middle school boys sharing a dirty joke.

By the time they reached the school they had composed themselves and Arima looked to be in much better spirits. His gaze sharpened as he saw Yukino standing with Aya and Rika outside the building. All three of them looked very worried.

"Miyazawa," Arima called. Then he caught sight of Tsubasa in the center of the yard, arms wrapped tightly around the waist of a boy with spiky bleached blond hair.

"Shibahime?" he said, walking quickly to her. "Are you okay?"

The strange blonde boy extended a hand, eyes bright with welcome. A silver chain choker on his neck glinted in the afternoon sun. "I'm Kazuma, Tsubasa's new brother," he said. "I want to thank you for taking care of her."

Watching him, Hideaki understood the fretful look on Yukino's face. For the longest time, Tsubasa had been Arima's protected little sister and now this handsome outsider suddenly laid claim to that role.

Arima looked at him for a moment, and then took the hand with a wide, genuine smile. "Pleased to meet you," he replied. "I'm Arima."

Kazuma beamed back at him, pleasure evident on his face. "Tsubasa's told me lots about you. It's great that she had someone like you to take care of her for so long."

Positive energy seemed to flow between them in a visible stream of light and Hideaki stared at the two smiling boys in pure bafflement. How could this punk-looking teenager make such a strong immediate connection with Arima when it had taken Hideaki weeks to get that smile?

"He seemed really cool," Arima said when they entered the school, walking to one of Arima's council meetings.

Hideaki muttered something grumpily. Luckily, Arima didn't seem to expect a real reply. His gaze went out to the gray clouds gathering in the sky outside the window.

"Looks like rain tonight. Are you staying late to practice your show?"

Shaking his head Hideaki thought sourly of his broken umbrella lying by the door of his apartment. "No, I'm working on scenery for the girls."

The sun was going down slowly and long shadows covered the hall. Outside, young, high voice rang in the cool afternoon and Hideaki paused at the window to watch a troupe of school girls walk past the building. Their uniforms were neat and clean, skirts moving against smooth legs. As first years, they still had the flush of excitement that comes with high school and the opportunities of fresh, blossoming lives. He felt that if he watched long enough, he could actually see them opening like flower buds in the sun.

"There's nothing like the laughter of a lovely young girl," Hideaki told Arima who stopped to watch as well.

Arima's mouth turned upward gently, but there was a question in his eyes. "Are you interested in someone, Asaba?"

Hideaki shook his head, pushing his facial muscles to beam back at Arima. "I can't choose just one girl," he declared. "It would be incredibly unfair to all the rest."

This triggered a bigger smile from Arima, a knowing grin with a hint of exasperation. Hideaki felt the familiar flare of something bright and warm inside his chest and he decided to push his luck.

"Of course, there's only one _boy_ I could like." His eyes shone meaningfully back into Arima's skeptical expression.

"That's not what I asked," Arima insisted. He didn't seem upset at all, just a little sad, and the concern in his voice confused Hideaki. Absently, Arima adjusted the book bag on his shoulder and stared out the window intently. Hideaki wanted to put an arm around those tired-looking shoulders and say something understanding or playful, but he sensed that was not the moment, that Arima was worried about _him_.

"You never tell me about yourself, Asaba, at least not what you do outside of school," Arima said, looking into his eyes. "You act like it's all a game sometimes. I never know what girl you're dating or where you want to go to college. I don't even know what your career plan is. Aren't friends supposed to know things like that?"

_No, they aren't_, Hideaki thought. _You've seen as much of me as I want you to see_. But he didn't say this. He just smiled agreeably and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, I haven't really decided on a big, exciting career path yet, probably something in art or the service industry," he said, glossing over the idea of a host job. "As far as girls go, I've dated several and I feel that no matter who I go out with, it will go perfectly smoothly. I just haven't found the right person yet, I guess."

Watching him attentively, Arima nodded at this, tilting his head slightly as he listened.

"When I find the right one, I'll give everything to her, and do anything to make her happy," Hideaki said, touching the edge of the window ledge. The paint was beginning to come off the wood and its roughs edges scratched against his palms. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arima's dark hair, the curve of his ear. "There's always someone out there, right?" The words came out remarkably easily.

"Yeah," Arima answered. He seemed comforted by Hideaki's speech and his eyes looked clear for a moment, like transparent pools of deep water. Hideaki felt the moment stretching between them easily, like a breeze of warm air.

Suddenly, Yukino's voice rang outside the window. "Watch out for the bench!"

Arima's eyes darted to the scene below, where Yukino and Tonami were working together to carry a long, polished bookcase to the building that the play would be in. They made a strange-looking pair, extremely mismatched in height with little Yukino holding the lower end in her thin arms, shouting directions as towering Tonami stumbled awkwardly backwards, twisting his neck to see where he was going.

"Can't you lift it any higher?" he complained.

Hideaki smiled at the sight and felt a twinge of guilt for not getting there in time to help them. He turned to say as much to Arima but he felt the boy stiffen beside him and his skin prickled with a too- familiar chill. Arima's mouth tightened in a hard line and his eyes took on the old blank ice. Beside Hideaki, he watched the comical team with their burden as though there was no one else in the world. Another might have interpreted his gaze as calm, disinterested observation, but Hideaki knew the lethal edges in that ice. Arima closed off the outside world as easily as shutting a door. His face remained composed, but his hands were clenched at his sides in pale, tight fists.

Gingerly, Hideaki reached to lay a reassuring hand on Arima's shoulder. _It's alright_, he wanted to say. _She's not interested in him_. His fingers barely brushed the rise of the clavicle before Arima reacted, shoving the arm away violently with a quick, powerful movement. Hideaki withdrew slightly, holding his aching limb, but he didn't back away from Arima's harsh glare.

"What do you want?" Arima hissed, his face drawn with pale fury. Hideaki remembered that day so long ago when he dared to bait Yukino and Arima had shoved him into the locker. Once again he felt startled by this raw, terrible love in his friend's body. _I want you_, he thought. _No, I want you to have Miyazawa_.

"I want you to be happy," he said.

Silently, Arima turned away and walked rapidly down the hall. For a moment, Hideaki wavered, rubbing his arm indecisively. But his mind was already made up and he followed after, without saying anything at all. The fear he held for Arima had less to do with what Arima could do to him and more with what the tormented boy might do to himself.

On the hard surface of the hall, Arima's shoes pounded out a steady rhythm and Hideaki had to nearly run to keep up with him.

"I'd like to be alone, Asaba," Arima said firmly, without turning.

"I'd like to be with you, please," Hideaki replied. His voice sounded amazingly calm in his own ears, a direct contradiction to the rapid beat of his heart and the sweat on his hands.

They ended up in an empty classroom. Arima sat down at a lonely desk in the corner, resting his forearms on its polished surface and bending forward, as though praying, or bowing in fear. Hideaki took a seat in the desk beside him and waited silently, watching the contained tension in the dark-haired boy's face, the strained angle of his neck.

"I'm so stupid," Arima growled at last, "thinking that she needed me as much as I need her."

"She does," Hideaki argued automatically. He wasn't sure if he believed this or not. Yukino was remarkably self-sufficient and independent, after all.

"No." Arima made the single word hard and sharp. "She doesn't need me to be happy. She was perfectly happy before she met me and there are plenty of people who can fill my place in her life."

"Yes," Hideaki said heavily. "You _are_ stupid." His thumbnails scraped against the textured surface of the desk. "Love isn't about need… well, not completely at least." He stumbled with words, unsure of himself suddenly and finally admitted, "I don't really know much about it… but I know Yukino told me that she fell even more in love with you after you came back last summer and… that she is trying to become a more complete person to understand you better."

Arima's head jerked upward to face him, eyes wide with a furious desperation. "I don't want her to understand— to see _this_," he said, voice rough. "If she knows who I really am, what I'm really like…"

"Soichiro," Hideaki started to say but Arima was already out of his seat, moving to the exit.

"I'm late for the meeting," he said stiffly. "Please don't say anything to Miyazawa."

"Of course I won't," Hideaki replied adamantly. He watched Arima walk through the doorway, shoulders squared with rigid determination. "Arima," he said, "don't take it out on Tonami. "He's just a dumb kid."

"I know," Arima replied. But there was no understanding in his voice, just a stark, harsh acknowledgement. And Hideaki sighed in defeat, dropping his head to the surface of the desk. He could see the anguish and fear breaking the perfect form of his best friend from the inside out and he had no idea how to fix it.

-

The school hummed with activity the week before the fair; students rushed about in thrifty disorder like ants from an overturned hill. Hideaki walked down the hall, dodging two boys struggling with a large signboard and a teacher with a stack of forms. He did offer to help a pair of girls carrying some books, but they blushed and told him it was no trouble at all. He caught sight of Yukino engaged in conversation with Aya and Tonami, gesturing fluently with her enthusiasm. He didn't see Arima nearby, and this bothered him slightly.

Wandering up the stairs, he sipped a cold can of soda in one hand and held his CD player in the other. Someone had scratched a long black line halfway up the railing in one trailing, wobbly stroke. Hideaki followed its path with one finger until it ended in a wispy curl.

Outside, the sky stretched endless pale blue dusted with a few bushy white clouds, bright and clean with possibilities. Hideaki looked across the white expanse of the roof from the door at the top of the building,. "Arima," he said.

The dark-haired boy sat on the smooth tiles with a book propped on his stretched out legs that looked suspiciously like a dry list of regulations. Briefly, he glanced up to meet Hideaki's gaze with calm, veiled eyes, but he didn't smile or speak before turning back to the text on his lap.

Popping open the soda, Hideaki took a slow drink and moved to sit beside Arima, setting his can on the tile beside him. He faced away from Arima, looking out at the grounds beyond the railing and the students milling like insects on the green lawn.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

Arima said nothing in reply. A soft beat thumped in Hideaki's ears and the tile of the roof gleamed white as Tsubasa's bared teeth. He closed his eyes and felt the sun shining through his lids, inescapably bright.

He could sense Arima shifting behind him and suddenly there was a warm weight leaning against his back. The hard points of Arima's shoulder blades pressed into his flesh and soft, smooth hair brushed against the back of his neck. Hideaki felt, rather than heard, the sigh rolling through the smaller boy's body. The rhythm of Arima's breathing echoed in Hideaki's frame with each pull of the lungs, and he felt slight tremors running through the small form.

Hideaki didn't open his eyes. The sun burned strange images into his pupils, dancing specks of light and dappled patterns. The warm burden of Arima against his back felt lighter than a flower petal and heavier than the entire world. _That's why you love me_. A sweet, full silence stretched between them, heavy with trust and a quiet acceptance that Hideaki didn't want to explain. Arima leaned against him, and that was enough.

-

Hideaki stepped onto the cold tile of his bathroom floor and turned on the water to heat his shower. Shivering, he slipped a disc into the player on the shelf above the sink and pulled off his shirt. By the time the first track had ended, steam began curl over the yellow curtain rod. Hideaki adjusted the temperature and removed the remainder of his clothes, hurrying into the warmth of the shower.

"_I want to reach you,"_ he sang with the vocalist. Scented soap foamed between his fingers. "_When did the road get so long and narrow_?"

He had once enjoyed dancing in the shower but an unfortunate slip a few months ago had warned him away from such behavior with a large bruise on the back of his head. "You'll crack your scull open, prancing around like that," his father had warned him when he skipped around the house as a child. Thinking of his father made him think of Arima then. He had once told Yukino that Arima reminded him of his father and being with Arima somehow helped him work through issues with his dad. She had looked at him with a sudden appraising gaze, as if trying to peer into his head.

Rika's voice floated back to him. "_Sometimes I look at you and I wonder who you really are_."

Squeezing a generous portion of strawberry shampoo into his palm, Hideaki tipped his head back into the flow of water to wet his shaggy blonde hair completely. Arima's face came to him again: Arima who never questioned who Hideaki tried to be, or tried to pry into his intentions. Of course, Arima ignored him sometimes, disregarded his feelings, and really controlled him in a way that Hideaki himself could not fully comprehend. But all the same…the dark boy drew him, fascinated him, and even needed him at times.

He leaned back and let the water wash the shampoo from his hair, closing his eyes at the sensation of heat against his scalp. Arima lay on the grass beneath the sakura trees with drifting blossoms settling on his face and in his hair. He exhaled softly and a petal landed on his lips. Hideaki drew in a quick breath of steam. Arima set down his shinai and took off his helmet. His hair stood up in crazy, sweaty spikes, his face was flushed with exertion. He smiled at Hideaki who was standing on the sidelines. And it didn't matter if it wasn't a real smile, if he had given it to a hundred others every day, because right now it was a smile for Hideaki alone, and he could pretend whatever he wanted.

_Stop it_, he told himself, _stop this right now_. Water ran down his back and shoulders in searing streams. But Arima stood on the beach in his long swim trunks and pulled off his baggy t-shirt. Of course Arima could look beautiful in a t-shirt—he could look beautiful in burlap sack. But when he pulled that shirt over his head to reveal the long, smooth stretch of his back and looked up from under dark, mussed hair, laughing at Yukino with his eyes crinkled against the sun and the brilliance of his own happiness…Hideaki could hardly breathe.

The air in the shower was too thick, too hot. His skin slid under his fingers, slick and feverish. _If you're going to do this_, _think about a girl_, he ordered himself, because it was too late to stop, too late to think of ignoring this.

_Some girl, any girl_. Images slipped before his mind, the girls on the beach, the women on the street, but none of them would stay. And Arima lounged on the bed beside him in the quiet bedroom, indolent and untouchable. Arima's voice came to him through the darkness of the night, soft and husky on the phone. Arima caught him by the shoulders and pushed him hard into the lockers, bruising his forearms, burning with contained passion, kissing his jaw roughly, biting his neck. Hideaki gasped. Arima's wet tongue, harsh teeth and nimble fingers blurred in a storm of delicious, torturous sensations and his touch hurt in its haste and ferocity. It all came too fast, too hard, in a single potent moment and Hideaki's body blazed out in a flash of light, like a dying star.

For some time, he leaned against the slippery tile of the shower wall until the water felt real against his skin and the music drifted in again. Straightening his body, he twisted the knob to add more cold water to the shower. Hideaki stood in the spray for several minutes. Then, laughing cynically at himself, he reached for the conditioner.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN**: Another three-week delay! I had this ready a week ago but my poor beta was sick. She valiantly worked to finish checking my errors. Thank you, starbrigid!

**Chapter Six**

It rained that night, just enough to darken the streets and blur window glass. In the morning, Hideaki walked to school breathing in the clear, warm air with a feeling of strange anticipation. He waved to three girls who called his name, flashing a trademark smile. Inwardly his mind roiled with anxiety.

Walking into the broadcast and reception meeting, he caught sight of Yukino holding a stack of papers with an expression of hurried exuberance. Her bright eyes fastened on him and she beamed with relief.

"Asapin, you're here too? Let's work together!"

She looked a little tired but incredibly cheerful in spite of it. Hideaki decided that as much as Yukino complained about the amount of work the school piled on her, the inherent leader in her thrived at the busiest times of the year. She seemed to be able to be everywhere at once and accomplish whatever was asked of her. He understood why a few administrators called her the "miracle-worker."

"Hey," Tonami called, coming up from behind them. "I'm so glad to see to see you guys here." He lowered his head with a gesture of embarrassment. "Um, I just don't know my way around this place yet…"

Yukino straightened instantly with the vigor of a guide discovering a lost traveler in the Sahara desert. "No problem," she declared eagerly. "Just stick by me today and I'll make sure you find where you need to go."

Something shifted unpleasantly in Hideaki's stomach. He knew instinctively that Yukino was only behaving the way she always had as an ideal class representative. But another part of him saw the scene as Arima might and he didn't like how close Tonami stood to Yukino, looking over her shoulder past the fall of smooth, caramel hair to the papers she held. The familiarity in Tonami's voice when he remarked that she looked tired sparked a sudden fear in Hideaki.

"Of course I am," she muttered in reply, focused on the papers.

Arima wouldn't see two friends with common interests or understand the source of Tonami's obsession with Tsubaki. Hideaki had seen the way Tonami followed the athletic girl around school, focusing on her with an intensity he had never shown Yukino. Looking through Arima's jealous eyes, he saw only Yukino's obvious attractiveness and Tonami's ease in her presence. Confusion and concern twisted in Hideaki at the thought of Arima's reaction. Something had to be done but he wasn't sure whether to face Arima with stark reason or consult Yukino with his observations. As it was, he felt strange about seeing Arima so soon after that stupid shower. His skin burned just thinking about it. On the other hand, getting free time _alone_ with Yukino at this time of year might be very well impossible.

In the end, he decided to go straight to the source and confront Takefumi Tonami himself. He got his chance that afternoon when an administrator asked him to fetch some papers from Yukino. Approaching the preparation room, Hideaki heard Tonami's voice say something about the pleasure of a slow, sure revenge.

"But you _have_ been fixated on her all these years," Yukino reminded him slyly.

Hideaki stopped in the doorway and watched them argue casually. Yukino leaned against a desk stacked with paperwork and held a pencil in one hand twisting it coyly. She had that subtle smile on her face that told him she was thinking of something amusing—probably something to do with Tsubaki.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tonami demanded, suspicion in his voice.

"Oh, nothing," she answered lightly.

She noticed Hideaki in the doorway. "Hey, Asapin. Awada-sensei told me you'd be coming for this paper." Riffling through the pile on the desk, she found the sheet and handed it to him.

"Lots of work today?" he asked.

Her eyes rolled back in an expression of mock exhaustion. Strands of her bangs were stuck to her forehead. "I have to go through all the club proposals tonight! It's going to take forever."

Tonami shifted sheepishly. "Well, I guess I should probably go help out my class."

"Okay," Yukino said. "Thanks for carrying stuff for me, Tonami."

"Sure."

Hideaki and Tonami left the room together and proceeded down the hall. As Hideaki walked beside the taller boy, he tried to form a convincing logical argument in his head. The silence between them made him uncomfortable and he felt the need to break it, but Tonami beat him to the punch.

"What's your relationship with Sakura?" he asked suddenly.

Hideaki was floored. He blinked a few times in confusion. "Tsubaki? Um… she's a friend, I guess. Why?"

Tonami didn't look at him. "I just saw you guys together yesterday after first period."

Hideaki wracked his mind for the instance and remembered standing by the window with Tsubaki that morning to observe the schoolgirls walking the paths between classes. They had argued about the meaning of beauty— Hideaki had insisted that all girls were beautiful while Tsubaki had declared that she only cared about the physically attractive ones.

"I just… I wanted to warn you that she's not a very reliable person," Tonami continued, moving his hand restlessly in the confines of his pockets. He turned suddenly to look Hideaki in the eye. "And she's not a proper girl at all, more like a guy really."

Hideaki laughed out loud. "You don't have to tell me that," he said, grinning at Tonami's uncertainty. "I'm not romantically interested in your lovely Tsubaki-chan so you can relax."

"Well…fine. But I don't like her either, you know" Tonami denied quickly. His voice rang with defiance, but his stiff posture had loosened considerably.

Hideaki bit his lip. "Let me give you some advice in return." He stopped walking and gave the other boy a slow, serious look. "I think it's best if you stop getting so friendly with Miyazawa. Arima isn't too generous when it comes to her." He tried to say it casually but Tonami's mouth dropped open in surprise.

"Are you saying that Arima is jealous… of me?" Tonami asked incredulously. "You've got to be kidding. He's the nicest guy ever."

The strange thing was that Hideaki could look straight into Tonami's clear brown eyes and see that wonderful, heroic version of Arima shining like a polished bronze statue. "You knew only one side of Arima," he said carefully. "The real Arima is actually very possessive and insecure. He depends on Miyazawa completely and he feels threatened when anyone gets close to her."

"What about you?" Tonami countered, skepticism obvious.

"He knows me," Hideaki answered with certainty. "He knows I would never touch her."

Tonami ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. "Come on! I don't like that crazy girl. Sure, she's cute… and smart. But she's definitely not my type.

Hideaki almost laughed. A bitter frustration burned in his mind, a need to make the other boy look past his own foolish self-awareness to see the dangerous line he was pushing. But Tonami was still flustered by the idea that he could be compatible with Yukino and Hideaki only tilted his head to sigh indifferently.

"I wonder why I thought you would understand," he said. "You really are a child."

As Hideaki turned to walk away, he thought he heard the other boy start to stutter something. His mind was filled with the image of a shadowy Arima wrapped in the chains of his own fears though, so he didn't stop to listen.

-

Hideaki found Aya on a bench outside the art building hunched over a smudged notebook a focused scowl on her face. Between her ink-stained fingers, a worn pen trembled with indecision.

He sat on the bench beside her but she didn't look up, so he dug into his book bag for a purple folder.

"I finished some new designs last night," he said, opening the folder. "I'm thinking a very smooth, elegant look for the surface of the bed-thing with some technical-looking buttons underneath. But we should keep the rest of the set simple to avoid distractions."

Aya lifted her head and studied the drawings with red-rimmed eyes. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.

"Yeah. Looks good. We need to find or build a big bookshelf though. I wonder where we'll get all the books."

"I could just paint them in," Hideaki said. "It'd be a lot more practical, but time-consuming."

"Hm." Aya pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and brought one to her mouth to light. "I'm not sure how much room we'll have yet. Gotta ask Yukinon."

Another time he might have wailed and fussed like Rika and Yukino did whenever they caught the obstinate writer smoking, but today he felt complacent and unwilling to spark a conflict. Her body seemed to relax and loosen as she drew on the cigarette between her lips and the anxiety in her eyes faded.

The smell of the smoke reminded him of days sitting behind the sofa with a box crayons and paper while his father watched baseball, puffing his way through a pack of cigarettes. After his dad would come home from work, Hideaki could never get his attention away from the television, but this hadn't bothered him very much. The voices of the announcers and the steady breathing of his father had been strangely comforting as he knelt on the hardwood floor drawing shapes with the blunted points of the waxy crayons.

Smoke rose in a slight wisp of cloud as Aya exhaled, insubstantial in the bright light of day. "Don't tell Yukino," she said. "It's a bad habit but sometimes I need it."

"I know what you mean," Hideaki said. And he had to press his lips tightly together to keep from laughing. _Hey_, _I jerk off sometimes thinking about her boyfriend!_ It really wasn't that funny. If he said it aloud, he doubted Aya would smile.

-

It was Yukino's idea to eat lunch by the river. They even managed to drag a reluctant, frustrated-looking Aya out the door and into the sun.

"One of her stories was published," Rika whispered to Hideaki when he asked about Aya's irritability and fatigue. "The magazine wants her to write some more and she's really stressed."

"I wish I was that talented," Yukino said, opening her lunch with a sigh. "I'm only good for studying."

"What an idiot," Maho grumbled from her place on the grass beside the other girl. "You're the one practically putting this entire festival together, stupid."

Hideaki chewed on his sandwich and watched little Tsubasa drag something out of the tall grass, pulling it up the steep incline of the hill.

"All my focus has been on school and Arima," Yukino mused. "But Arima's so busy with kendo and class activities. I guess I just want to build a new place for myself and develop some interests outside my shallow life of trying to be the best in class."

He saw now that Tsubasa was hauling a thick piece of pale blue plastic that had been bent at on end to make a sled. Some kids must have left it there from last winter and the grass had grown up to hide it.

"Sometimes I think that Arima is so much deeper than me… it's like there's such much going on beneath the surface of his face," Yukino continued, turning a fish cracker in her fingers. "It's a little scary—like I don't really know him, or I'm not deep enough to understand him."

Hideaki felt that he should say something, but he couldn't think of the words. Obviously, Yukino couldn't be completely oblivious to what went on beneath the face of Arima's calm façade. But Arima loved her too much to show her who he really was. He wanted so badly to be this perfect person for her sake—the kind of person he felt she could love in return. The harder Arima tried to maintain the pasted persona, the more Hideaki watched it crack.

Standing, he smiled back into Tsubasa's animated, expectant face. She gripped the cheap blue sled in both hands, determination clear.

"Are you going to ride that down the hill?" he questioned in a tone of teasing disapproval.

"I hope it will slide on the grass," she said, eyes shining with anticipation.

"You'd better let me do a test drive first," he advised.

When he sat on the sled, she pressed two small, firm hands against his back and took several steps, pushing hard to give the sled momentum. As it slid fast over the edge of the hill, she jumped on to stand behind him and gripped his shoulders, shrieking with delight as they picked up speed.

They didn't make it very far before friction and rocks combined forces to overturn the sled. Hideaki fell sideways onto the grass. Tsubasa tumbled over the top of him and rolled a ways on the hill before coming to a stop, long hair flung over her face.

At the top of the hill, Yukino stood up quickly. "Are you okay, Shibahime?"

For a moment, Tsubasa just lay there. Then she spoke. "That was so cool!" she breathed, voice husky with excitement. "I bet we could roll all the way down to the river, Asapin."

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Like long bowling pins, they rolled their bodies down the steep slope, flattening spiky grass with their wake. Tsubasa yelled as she tumbled, her voice vibrating and jolting with the movement of her body. She reached the bottom first because, although she weighed less, Hideaki's long legs tangled and slowed his pace.

"Rematch!" he demanded when he reached the bottom. In the background, the river chattered loudly.

Standing, Tsubasa grinned widely and sprinted toward the hill. "Beat me to the top first!"

He raced after her, pitting his legs against her wild endurance. The sun heated his back and his light-colored hair swung against his face. His knees were bruised and a dark green grass stain showed on his left pant leg, but he felt like a kid again, racing for the sheer thrill of his pumping lungs and strong legs.

"Hurry up— lunch is over!" Maho yelled at them.

In front of him, Hideaki saw only Tsubasa's long, wavy hair flying out behind her like a banner. As he passed her, he caught a strand and tugged it playfully. She snarled, seeing him surge ahead and Hideaki felt those small, fierce hands on his back again, fastening onto his shirt. Decisively, she went limp and the weight of her body brought him down face first into the grass.

"Oonf," he gasped, weak with the weight of the small, giggling sixteen year-old girl who had scrambled to straddle his back.

"You're like a bunch of kids," Yukino said. She stood a few feet above them at the top of the hill, grinning broadly at the sight. "It's so cute."

"Asapin is so much fun," Tsubasa declared, pulling his hair happily. Hideaki turned his head and spit out a mouthful of grass.

-

Hideaki met Reiko at the music store near his apartment. His eyes caught on a rare Miwa Sasagawa single nestled between its companions and when he reached for it, her hand was already there. Their elbows jostled for a moment before they both laughed and apologized.

"You like Sasagawa?" the young woman asked. She had short, dark hair and wore a turtleneck sweater despite the heat. He had meant to give up the CD to her and return home to finish his homework, but instead they talked about music for half an hour until the store closed and the staff kicked them out.

Reiko introduced herself as psychology major studying at the local university. She seemed much more confident than most of the girls he knew and didn't hesitate to invite him out to a concert on the weekend. Hideaki liked dating older women; they knew what they were getting into, didn't have as many fluffy fantasies as pretty young school girls, and generally avoided hysterics when the time came for breaking up.

After attending the concert, they went back to his place to eat. Reiko was surprised to find out that he was only a second-year high school student living on his own. After eating the meal, she was also impressed with his culinary abilities.

"You'll make someone a great husband some day," she told him seriously.

Hideaki smiled politely and laughed inwardly at the thought. Girls were fun to admire and hang out with, but the idea of actually staying with one for the rest of his life had never crossed his mind. It didn't really help that his parents' union hadn't exactly been a model of marital bliss.

He considered telling sensible, serious Reiko about his plans to support himself through college instead of relying on his parents, but he decided it was better she think him a handsome, harmless distraction. He had played the role all his life and it was an easy fit now. Once things got serious and people became close, the fun was gone. It was better like this with a friendly, careful distance between them.

"Have you heard of Yin and Yang?" he asked her, scraping the dishes clean and setting them in the dishwasher.

"Of course," Reiko said. "They're only the hottest new thing in indie rock."

"I've met the lead singer," he bragged. "His sister goes to my school."

In truth, he had never actually been introduced to Kazuma or even attempted to make contact with the blonde singer at all. The memory of Kazuma's instant connection with Arima still rankled in his mind. That day in the courtyard, Arima had looked at the other boy like he was a long-lost friend suddenly discovered.

_If he went to our school, he'd replace me in an instant as Arima's best friend._ The thought entered Hideaki's mind and he quickly pushed it away.

-

With the approach of the school festival, Arima wore a calm, veiled expression. The days stretched long and hot with a choking humidity. Students plucked at their damp uniforms in obvious discomfort during classes and Arima came out of kendo practice soaked in sweat. His dark bangs clung to his forehead when he removed the helmet.

"What are you doing here?" he asked when he saw Hideaki. "Don't you have practice for your show?"

"Fujisawa's handling the preparations," Hideaki said. "I've got all the steps down. I just hope that the girls can get all the costumes done in time." He reached to help Arima take off the thick _kote_ hand and forearm protectors that made long, unwieldy mittens unsuitable for anything but holding a bamboo sword.

"Girls?" Arima questioned, raising an eyebrow. He avoided Hideaki's touch and pulled the _kote_ off himself.

"Yeah, the young ladies of class F were kind enough to volunteer for costume preparation in order to do their part for the class."

"I'm sure," Arima said wryly. "All for the good of the class." He wiped sweat off the side off of his neck with one hand, looking away at the other students who were rolling up their mats and putting their shinai away.

"Are you jealous, Soichiro?" Hideaki teased, tilting his head with an exaggerated expression of sympathy.

Arima began to unlace his heavy armor. "Why would I want to make your stupid costumes?" he retorted mildly.

"But you'd look so good trimming lace and hemming sleeves," Hideaki persisted. He picked up Arima's helmet and followed the other boy into the storage room. If Arima was smiling, he hid it by keeping his head turned away.

"What, are you discriminating now, Soichiro? Are you too masculine to sew costumes but not so masculine that you can't serve girly desserts?" He tapped the helmet playfully against Arima's back.

"The whole club is doing it," Arima replied, hanging up his armor on the rack. "Even the captain is baking his specialty."

"I thought nothing a man cooks can taste good," Hideaki grumbled as another kendo student approached. Arima didn't reply, looking up at his teammate.

"We're meeting in the preparation room, Arima-sempai," the kendo student said. "Captain wants to start setting up the booth."

Hideaki set the helmet on top of the rack with its companions and nodded to Arima. "I'll see you later then."

"Sure." Arima ran a hand quickly through his sweaty hair, conscious of his disheveled appearance. His eyes never focused on Hideaki's and there was an absent, distracted air hanging over him that bothered Hideaki for some reason. It was natural for a responsible class rep like Arima to be distracted in a busy time like this, but Hideaki felt something prickle in the back of his throat as the boy's distant behavior. Did Arima think brushing his friend off was the best way to hide himself? _Are we just going to play busy casual acquaintances now?_ Hideaki wondered. It certainly wasn't the first time Arima had pushed him away, but this rejection was more subtle, Arima's emotional distortion less easy to read.

Impulsively, Hideaki reached out and caught Arima's arm as the other boy turned to leave. Arima turned slightly and gave him a confused look. The skin of his upper arm was flushed and slick with sweat under Hideaki's fingers.

"Call me if you need anything," Hideaki said. "Or you can come by anytime. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to… but you should know that."

Arima's eyes were focused on the gray expanse of cement wall behind his shoulder. "I have to go, Asaba."

"Okay." Hideaki said calmly. He let go. There was a dry, disgusting feeling in his mouth.

-

Reiko invited him to a movie the next day and she brought her roommate along. Hideaki liked the girls well enough; they were both attractive and friendly, but they chattered continuously throughout the film, or at least for the first forty minutes that Hideaki was awake. The theater was dark and warm and the feminine voices strangely soothing. He dreamed of odd, disconnected moments, of the time he drew the outline of a pink rabbit on the wall of his childhood home and his first trip to a haunted house where yellow banshees chased him down moldering wells.

He dreamed, then, of a little boy with black hair and expansive eyes who walked the surface of a cold moon. His small feet raised puffs of chalky, gray dust with every step and a shadow trailed behind him like a dark cloak. As Hideaki watched, the shadow pooled deeper and wider, lengthening like some morbid wedding veil until it suddenly reared its head and began to walk upright. The shadow had formed the shape of a young man and it followed the child closely, dogging its footsteps. Like a malicious black mist, the shadow engulfed the figure of the little boy and swallowed him up completely.

"Asaba!" Reiko called. "Wake up, you lazy kid. The movie's over."

Hideaki blinked rapidly and stretched his body, accustoming himself to his surroundings. "Well, that was a great film," he said, gathering up his jacket and empty soda container. "I feel so refreshed after seeing it."

Laughing, Reiko shook her head in defeat. She wore long, dangly earrings that rocked against her jawbone as her head moved.

"You're too cute," her roommate, Arisu said. "I'd steal you from Rei-chan but my mother always warned me not to dates guys who wear more jewelry than me."

Hideaki put on his shocked-surprised face. "It's a sign of affluence, my dear. You should be eager to get a rich man like me who can afford these accessories."

He was keenly aware of the subtle flirtation beneath the surface of their banter. In his experience, girls loved to be teased and given this kind of half-serious scrutiny. It made them aware of their own attractive potential, something they had been taught since childhood. Even though these were college girls living in a new age of sexual equality, they instinctively knew that the duty of a woman was to attract a stable, handsome male. This social expectation both repelled and amused Hideaki. He really liked girls, especially looking at them and just being with them. Even so, they never had the power over him that he had seen them exert over other boys and men.

Arisu giggled at him and lowered her head slightly toward one shoulder in a coy expression of false modesty, covering her mouth with one hand while giving him a lovely view of her thin white neck. She had long, red-gold hair, a sharp contrast to Reiko's dark pixie cut. When they exited the theater, the streetlights made the jeweled clips in her hair sparkle and Hideaki realized she had fine glitter on her cheekbones. All this he saw like a man critiquing a flower or a painting. _Attractive, but a little childish and gaudy_, he thought. He did not like to see himself like this, a detached observer of beauty and companionship. He did not have any desire to think of Arisu in the shower.

All the same, he did nothing when she slipped a piece of paper with her cell phone number into his hand.

That night he stayed up late, drinking and talking with the girls before returning to his dark apartment. Unable to summon the energy for homework, he collapsed into bed and slept soundly through the night. It wasn't until the morning when he woke up with the white light of day in his eyes that he remembered the shadow swallowing the boy on the moon.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **Beware of the somewhat abrupt time change in the middle. I skipped volumes 9-12 because they didn't contain much character development for Arima or Hideaki. Hopefully nobody had their hopes pinned on my portrayal of the Kyoto trip or the TsubasaxKazuma arc. I loved those parts of the manga, but I don't feel that they have much place in this story. It's long enough already.

Thanks to those who choose to review, especially Goldeneyes. Reviews do not always make me write more but they do supply a huge boost of confidence. Lack of reviews does tend to depress me, although I know it shouldn't. I like to feel that my writing is not completely in vain, so, if you have a moment to spare, a few words make a huge difference. Of course, I'll finish this whether you review or not so you're not taking any risks, eh?

Without further ado: here's another 4,000 words for your pleasure…

**Chapter 7**

Sunday simmered with the same thick humidity that had plagued the area all week. Hideaki plucked irritably at his sweaty t-shirt and cursed the faulty air conditioning in his apartment building. He tried working on a few sketches but the lines of faces blurred before his eyes. _If he's in trouble, he'll call me_, he told himself. And Arima hadn't called.

Through the floor, Hideaki could hear the woman downstairs begin to laugh loudly and hysterically. He scribbled furiously over his drawing until the pencil ripped the surface of the paper. He wiped the sweat from his face and nearly fell from his seat when the phone rang.

"Hello?" It wasn't Arima. "Oh. Hi, Dad."

He sat down on the edge of the couch and, phone at his ear and drew his legs up to his chest. "No, I'm fine. How are you?"

His father asked him how his grades were.

"Good enough." He rubbed the calluses on the bottom of one foot, listening to his father's voice. "Yeah, everyone's talking about that typhoon. They'll probably cancel classes tomorrow."

His father asked if he needed any money.

"No, I'm good." Stretching one foot, he picked up the pencil from the floor between his toes and hoisted it into the air, smiling to himself. "Are you or mom going to be able to make it to the cultural festival this week? I'm putting on a big one-man show for my class."

His father said that Hideaki showed off enough already and should expend more energy on his studies if he wanted to be anything in life.

"So you're not coming, huh? The pencil hit the floor loudly. Hideaki leaned against the couch and closed his eyes. The woman downstairs started to howl with laughter, high and desperate, like a dying animal. "Sure," Hideaki said. "Sure, Dad." He had to count silently in his head and smile like a madman to keep the bile back. "Yeah. I understand… I'll talk to you later."

Hanging up the phone, he rolled his neck to ease the stress and poked absently at the pencil with one toe. In his head, fuzzy remnants of the dream in the theater clung stubbornly and there was a dull ache in the pit of his stomach. He picked up the phone, telling himself that it was concern and not loneliness that made him dial Arima's number.

Arima's aunt/mother answered and told him that Soichiro had taken Yukino and her sisters to the zoo. Hideaki thanked her and set the phone down again. The corners of his mouth hurt where he had forced it into a wide smile. He thought of Yukino and adorable Kano and Tsukino running around to see all the animals at once. _It's hot out. Arima will buy them ice cream and they'll all sit on the grass while they eat, watching sweaty, eager families go by_. He bit his lip painfully. Arima could have invited him. He would have been funny and entertaining, making sure everyone laughed and had a great time. He would have lifted up Kano so that she could see into the bear compound and teased Yukino about her summer dress. He would have leaned over quickly for a lick of Arima's ice cream, just to get the other boy's attention.

Hideaki pushed the images out of his head and pulled ice tea out of the fridge. He considered calling Reiko before he remembered they were no longer going out. She had told him last night that she had met an attractive classmate and asked Hideaki if he minded just being friends.

"It's not your age," she had said. "I just don't feel that we're romantically compatible. There's none of the chemistry that makes for long-lasting couples."

Hideaki agreed with her completely. There was no way he was getting into a long-term relationship with Reiko. She was a nice person, but he considered her, like most of his girlfriends, to be more of an enjoyable distraction than a potential soul-mate.

Indecisively he glared at his hands. His own admissions sounded shallow and heartless in his own ears. Okay, so he never purposely led girls to believe he was some Prince Charming who would love them for eternity but he had to admit that he did use young women to fill his need for social contact and their admiration did empower him immensely.

Hideaki laughed at himself. No wonder Arima didn't want him coming to the zoo. He was nothing but a flaky, flamboyant performer who would only annoy them in his drive for attention and companionship.

_But if that's all you are, then why does he lean on you sometimes?_ he asked himself. _You're more than that. Stop moping idiot. You can live without him for one day_.

He tapped his fingers on the table and thought of wavy red hair and glitter. Picking up the phone, he dialed Arisu's number.

-

At school on Monday, the colorful booths and scenery that students had worked so hard to set up were meeting an early death. Across the field, teams of classmates worked to take down their work before the typhoon winds did it for them. With the storm system expected to pass through the area that night, administrators were taking no chances. Hideaki first worked with Class F to take down the background for the date show before moving on to assist other classes and clubs.

Afternoon classes had just begun when the wind picked up considerably, flinging leaves and debris against the windows. Rain began to fall in heavy sheets over the campus. Hideaki wasn't surprised when the announcement went out that classes were cancelled for the rest of the day and students should return home as quickly as possible.

He met Aya and Rika in the hall where they were putting on their coats. "Can I walk you to you destination, ladies?" he asked.

"We're fine," Aya told him.

Rika smiled gratefully, ignoring her. "We'd be glad to walk with you, Asapin."

"Where's Arima and Yukinon?" he asked, scanning the crowded hall.

"Student council members are staying later," Rika said. "Don't worry, Arima will keep her safe."

"I'm not worried about her," Hideaki said, grinning. "The winds wouldn't dare sweep away Miyazawa."

"Asapin!" Rika scolded, laughing softly. "Are you making fun of her?"

Aya rolled her eyes. "I'm sure Arima would fight the wind god himself if he had to protect his wife," she said dryly.

Hideaki shook his head, snickering. "He wouldn't get a chance. Miyazawa would kick wind god ass first."

-

He found Arima in a classroom with several other student council members and administrators. Yukino stood near him, her eyes squinting with concentration as they ran down a list of emergency procedures.

"Why are you here?" Arima asked, raising his voice when he saw Hideaki.

"I thought we could walk out together," Hideaki replied. "Aya and Rika are waiting out in the hall and Tsubaki took Tsubasa home."

Arima shook his head impatiently. "We have to stay later but you need to go. All the regular students have to go home."

Hideaki shrugged obligingly. "Then we'll wait for you here."

"No, Asaba. It's my job to make sure everyone else leaves before we do."

"Then we'll be the last non-council members to leave," Hideaki argued.

Yukino laughed at his stubbornness and smirked toward Arima.

"Just go," Arima ordered, frustration obvious. "Walk with the other girls and I'll make sure Miyazawa gets home safely."

"But who will make sure _you_ get home safely?" Hideaki persisted.

Arima clenched his jaw in exasperation. "Asaba." His eyes promised no more argument.

"Okay, okay. I'm going." Stepping back, Hideaki gave Yukino a thumbs-up for luck and she returned it cheerfully.

Hideaki walked Aya and Rika out of the school and down the road to the grocery store where Aya's older brother worked. The held the hoods of their coats pulled tight against the lashing wind and rain. It was impossible to speak.

The windows of the store were boarded up for protection against the storm. Outside its doors, a tall man with glasses stood, wrapped in a long coat. He waved frantically to Aya and Rika.

"Thank you for bringing them!" he shouted to Hideaki.

"No problem!"

Hideaki didn't miss the way Aya's brother looked at Rika after hugging his sister. She ducked her head shyly as he half-raised his arms before dropping them. His very body language said: _I want to hug you too, but…_ Only people in love were that foolishly indecisive.

"See? You had nothing to worry about, Rika-chan," Hideaki murmured under his breath, thinking of her heartfelt confession in the art room.

By the time he reached his apartment, his clothes were soaked through and clinging to his body. Changing quickly, he went to fill jugs with water and search for candles. The howling of the storm winds lent a strange sense of silence and isolation to the little apartment. He could no longer hear his neighbors or the traffic on the street. He felt oddly like an animal hiding away for winter hibernation, unsure of how the world might change when he woke up.

Wrapped in a large blanket, he curled up on the couch like a child and watched the wind and rain outside the window. A math textbook sat uselessly on the table. He pulled the blanket closer, rubbing his nose against it in a comforting gesture. The lights flickered several times and finally went out. He made no to move to find the candles and settled deeper into the cushions of the couch, letting his head fall back. The darkness covered everything, blanking out the fury of the storm.

Hideaki slept and dreamed of many things. Events sped past him, streaking colors and faces. The festival with its music and lights and smells, eyes shining with excitement, school trips with falling leaves and concerts thrumming with riotous energy. Arima's face came to him several times, cool and clear in his mind. He felt that he could touch the surface of Arima's soul like the film of ice over water, that he could even peer through the ice to see the coils of darkness and beauty swimming beneath. In the end though, he had no power to break that ice and touch the fragile things inside.

Hideaki woke to voices. People were outside on the streets, talking loudly, raking up leaves and garbage. The rumble of a garbage truck rattled the building. Droplets of rain beaded his windows but the sun was out. He had slept through to morning and the storm had broken.

-

_Let's start from the beginning…_

_Once upon a time a boy with a shadow met another boy whose smile covered everything._

_They made no pacts, they promised nothing of each other._

_The boy with the shadow hid his pain so well that even he couldn't remember why he hurt._

_The boy with the smile saw through all masks but his own._

_He gave pieces of himself away to fill the void in the other without even knowing it._

_And then time moved on…_

Senior year at the school by the river began with the usual fanfare of excited new students and harried staff. Hideaki watched the first year girls with his usual pleased admiration. They looked up at him with the expected mix of awe and exhilaration that kindled a warm feeling in his chest. Catching sight of a familiar face, he strode over to where Miyazawa Kano stood with two friends and caught her hands up in his. She was undoubtedly shocked that another student had grabbed onto her, but the look on her face turned to utter astonishment as Hideaki whirled her around in a wide circle. The expressions on her friends' faces were even more interesting as they stared in stunned delight, mouths hanging open.

"Kano-chan!" Hideaki crowed. "I can't believe you're here!"

She got her balance back and stared up at his face, clearly more than a little embarrassed. "Asaba-sempai, aren't you a senior this year?"

"Yeah, why?" Hideaki beamed. Kano looked so adorable in the school uniform with her short hair in barrettes, a younger version of pretty, petite Yukino.

"Shouldn't you be acting a little more mature by now?" Her friends gasped at her open blasphemy, a direct insult to one of school's most popular figures.

"Ah, but that's no fun," Hideaki pouted. He rubbed his hands together. "Is darling Tsukino-chan here too?"

Kano shook her head. "She didn't get good enough marks for this school."

"So sad," Hideaki sighed. "Sometime you should call her so we can all go out on a date together."

The girls behind them giggled shrilly. Kano nodded, looking more than a little weary and skeptical of his motives. "Sure, Asaba-sempai."

She returned to her blushing, envious friends and they moved away from him, whispering furiously. Hideaki thought nostalgically of the time Kano and Tsukino had fawned over him, showing him their childish drawings and colorful books of manga that summer when Arima was gone. They had affectionately called him "Asaba nii-san" then and constantly sought his attention with a sweet determination.

Farther down the hall, he saw Tsubaki and Tonami towering over the shorter freshmen girls. Their arms brushed against each other as they walked with a comfortable camaraderie. After all the angst and fighting they had slipped into the role of the confident couple with surprising ease, and the two of them together cast a striking image for the impressionable school girls to look up to with admiration. Hideaki liked the two of them together because they seemed to feed off each other's fierce energy and channel it into healthy outlets. Tsubaki had someone to curb her forceful, rough exuberance and Tonami had someone to focus his neurotic, controlling impulses. Plus, she kept his attention away from Arima, something that Hideaki definitely appreciated after witnessing the other boy's blind worship.

Now, if only Tsubasa could distract her step-brother, Hideaki thought sourly. He knew that Arima and Yukino were just as much in love as Kazuma and Tsubasa, but after hearing the Yin and Yang CD every time he visited Arima's house and listening to the boy's fervent praise of the young vocalist, Hideaki felt more than a little jealous. Since when had Arima cared about music or bands? Then there were all the times Arima had blushed wildly in Kazuma's presence—not exactly a platonic signal. Hideaki had never liked Tsubasa so much as the day she announced that she and Kazuma were engaged to be married. Of course, he had pretended to be as shocked as the others by the news that child-like Tsubasa would become a bride, but just how long could those two pretend that the way they sang together and glowed and clung to each other was normal sibling behavior? Hopefully, they would stay completely wrapped up in each other now, and forget their mutual attraction to Arima.

As he passed a math classroom, a wide-eyed brunette caught his gaze, another naïve first year. She stared at him, pink mouth half open—perhaps recognizing the legendary Asaba—and when he smiled at her, she looked immediately down at her feet.

Hideaki frowned thoughtfully and stopped to study his reflection on the glass case of school awards. His hair was shorter than before, per Arima's request: _"Why don't you cut your damn hair like a normal person?"_ All the same, he had added his own unique touch of rebellion by dyeing it a bright shade of orange. His reflection was too faint to see more than an outline of his face and vague colors. He couldn't even see into his eyes; they were just dark shadows beneath his bangs. _Arima eyes._

-

The guidance counselors passed out forms to all seniors asking them to mark their top three career choices. Hideaki delivered his confidently to the elderly counselor, expecting to finish the assignment easily.

Kawashima stared at the sheet for several moments while Hideaki waited expectantly. "Asaba-kun," the counselor said at last, raising his head slightly to touch his eyeglasses, "Your record indicates that you are an excellent art student with extensive potential. I think you ought to at least consider that area in your career choices."

Hideaki shrugged. He had considered it but the idea of drawing and painting for a living seemed a little boring, to say the least, and not nearly as lucrative as working in a host bar or modeling.

"I just don't see many promising entry-level jobs in the art world," he said diplomatically. "Working as a host is something that truly interests me and I think that could do very well in such a position."

Kawashima nodded gravely and moved closer to Hideaki to study him with weary eyes. "If that's what you're set on, we'll see if we can find you a decent, suitable club to… entertain."

_Oh my god_. Hideaki moaned inwardly. His shoulders stiffened. "With all due respect sir, I'm not entirely sure how you can determine the suitability of a host club."

The counselor smiled bitter reassurance. "Don't worry. I'll just come with you to interviews at the clubs."

Hideaki's mind shriveled at the thought of the strait-laced old counselor walking into crowded, flashy host clubs to assess their "decency" factor. By the nervous twitch in the corner of Kawashima's mouth and the tension wrinkles between his eyes, Hideaki guessed that the counselor wasn't terribly eager for the experience either. Hideaki clenched his teeth in a hard grin. "If you really want to, sir."

"I think it's the best way," the counselor answered, wiping his forehead.

…_to trigger an aneurysm_, Hideaki finished mentally.

-

He found Yukino in the courtyard after classes but Arima wasn't with her. She told him that her other half had gone with his father to be fitted for suit.

"Something about a cousin's wedding," she said waving a hand in a careless gesture. "He said it like he didn't expect me to know or care."

"He doesn't have a lot of love for his extended family," Hideaki admitted.

"I know that," she replied. "I just wish he'd talk to me about it once in a while instead of brushing me off when I try to find out more about him." She stared pensively into the distance.

Hideaki nodded, understanding her feelings completely. On the other hand, he also understood Arima's reasons to some extent, his need to protect her. He ran his fingers over the surface of his soda can, cold smooth, concealing the bubbling pressurized force inside itself.

"I've never seen Arima in a suit," Hideaki said with a slow smirk. His soda can opened with a satisfying hiss.

"Neither have I," Yukino replied, licking her lips. Hideaki laughed in surprise and they chuckled together, sharing a common glee.

"Of course, he looks handsome in anything," she admitted. "He's supernaturally good-looking. I swear, every day I see him he's only gotten hotter."

"Not to mention more intelligent," Hideaki added, slyly.

As he had anticipated, Yukino's eyes narrowed with frustration. "Don't remind me," she grumbled. "I've been playing second fiddle to him in every test we've taken this year. He's just so above my level—everyone's level!"

Hideaki swallowed another fizzy mouthful of his soda and it tingled all the way down his throat. Yukino perched on the short brick wall in the courtyard, her skinny legs covered in black stockings stretched out before her so that only her toes touched the pavement.

"I heard he scored high on the preliminary exams," Hideaki said mildly, moving to sit beside her.

"Number eight!" she cried, lifting her arms for emphasis. "Number eight in the entire country of Japan! That's not human, Asapin."

He sipped his soda more slowly. "Then I suppose all the students who scored higher than him are actually aliens who have infiltrated our schools as innocent students?"

"You know what I mean," she grumbled. "It's scary how perfect he is sometimes. He's practically a god to all the first years."

"And you're his goddess," Hideaki replied. She socked his shoulder and the impact caused the soda to spill over his knuckles. "That was uncalled for," he complained.

Yukino rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Asaba. I'm starting to worry about Arima. He's so completely flawless and wonderful I feel like it can't be real. I'd really hate him if I didn't love him so much."

"He wants to be a perfect boyfriend, you know that." Hideaki shrugged and licked the sweet traces of soda off his hand. "I don't know what you're complaining about. Aren't you guys happy when you're together?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "I can't help but worry that there must be some imperfect part of him that he just won't show me, something that he hides from me. The closer I try to get to him, the farther he seems to pull away. It's a little frightening to think that I might always be beneath him, inferior and… unworthy I guess." She laughed self-consciously. "I know what you'll say. It's stupid to think that; be grateful for what you have. But I can't help but feel that there must be someone better, prettier, smarter, someone who can understand him, make him happy."

Hideaki took another mouthful and swished the drink over his teeth, thinking. "Who would have thought that the great Miyazawa was insecure?" he said lightly, ignoring her scowl. "Are you coming to me for advice now? I honestly don't see what the problem is. You love him. He loves you. What does it matter if you're not perfectly matched in wits and looks as long as the sex is good?"

Yukino gave him another withering glare but he saw that her cheeks were pink. "I don't recommend a career in therapy for you," she said.

Looking out to the sky, she sighed heavily and dropped her shoulders. "I guess you're right. I'm worrying over nothing."

_Not nothing_, he thought, but he wasn't about to enlighten her on the subject of his own fears and insecurities regarding her boyfriend. Yukino was much braver and luckier than him when it came to Arima.

"Thanks for listening to me babble," she said, sliding off her seat on the wall. "I told Arima that I'd come over tonight after he gets home but I've got stuff to do at my house first."

"You're welcome," he said with a lazy shrug.

She reached out and ruffled his hair with one hand "I'll never get used to this color," she said affectionately. "Best of luck on the exam tomorrow, Asapin."

Hideaki watched her go. He thought idly of what Yukino and Arima might do in the dark-haired boy's spacious, neat bedroom with the tatami mats, the bookcases, and the wide, spacious bed. He wondered if they undressed themselves or pulled the clothes off each other, flushed but charged with desire. He wondered if Yukino pulled Arima's shirt off quickly in her breathless exhilaration, tangling their young limbs together, or slowly, savoring the gradual exposure of smooth, white skin.

He wondered what Arima's skin felt like— not the quick, furtive touches Hideaki had attempted against hands and arms and the back of Arima's warm neck— but a real touch, skimming over the gentle curve of his back, burying a face into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, pressing into his soft, vulnerable stomach. What would it be like to give Arima touches that were accepted… even desired?

Yukino had reached the end of the building and she disappeared out of his sight. He should have offered to walk with her at least part of the way. This was one of the times when Hideaki really wanted to feel happy and hopeful for Yukino and her perfect lover. It would be the right thing to do, the good thing to do. The aluminum soda can bent slightly between his tight fingers.

_Maybe I'm more like Arima than I realized_, he pondered bitterly. _Always jealous over the people I can't control._


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: ** Very, very sorry for the day. This is the first free day I've had in two weeks. I really have been writing as much as a can but work and illness have kept me down for a while. Now I've recovered and they've stopped calling me for extra hours so I should be able to get these chapters out faster. Please enjoy.

**Chapter Eight**

He awoke before his alarm, tangled in the rough, warm embraced of his twisted sheets. The coverlet was bunched and heavy against his back. There was something sweet and terrible writhing in his body, heating his blood. His skin felt shivery-sensitive, stretched too tightly. He could only remember vague, translucent fragments of the dream, but it had been about Arima, of course, and it had been good: strong hands, firm fingers, Arima holding him down, leaning over him with parted lips and endless, liquid eyes.

His hand had already slipped between his thighs and sweat had gathered on his stomach and back, under his arms. Still half-asleep, he closed his mind to the glowing digits on the clock radio and the faint light from the window. The lazy, delicious arousal crept over him, stealing his breath. It would be easy to finish off the need quickly and efficiently and get back to the business of sleeping or waking, but Hideaki did not want to think rationally.

He pulled his hand back, sliding it over the sheets to clutch the edge of the bed. Drawing in quick, rapid breaths, he savored the unfurling of the demanding ache throbbing through his body, spreading wisps of pleasure from his stomach to his fingertips. His hypersensitive skin felt every strand of hair that shifted against his face. The fabric of the pillow smelled deeply of his own soap and lotion and sweat.

Carefully, he twisted his hips, turning his body downwards and just the small movement, the slight friction sent another wave of desire flooding through him. He gasped softly into the pillow, is stomach clenching. Arima was a distant, simmering presence in his sleep-fogged mind. Slowly, he moved his body, pressing into the thick mattress, sliding languidly against its firm, rumpled surface. He drew out the pleasure with great care, intending to savor the sweet resistance. The pillow muffled his faint moans. His left hand gripped the edge of the mattress while the fingers of his right hand curled in the pale sheets, alternately twisting and stroking the fabric. His tongue slicked the roof of his dry mouth.

"Arima," he gasped. The pillow swallowed his voice easily. Burning slowly, he twisted his body harder against the mattress, relishing the resonance of pleasure and stronger want. Hideaki knew what was inside him now, knew this feverish, ravenous beast curled inside his belly. He knew what it wanted.

His hair stuck to the back of his neck, chaffed the side of his face. He bit his chapped bottom lip and arched his back again, reveling in the stretch of muscles and tendons, the straining energy racing through his body. He pretended there was something brilliant and beautiful inside him, a fiery presence fighting its way out of his body, burning through his skin.

Morning light spilled over the edge of the windowsill, bringing in the familiar sounds of people getting up and going about their lives, but Hideaki was safe and warm in his own private space, grinding slowly into the mattress of his bed. He panted and whispered foolish things to himself, repeating the name of his best friend. He felt on the edge of breaking, but still he grappled with the raw hunger, twisting it, teasing it, until it finally overwhelmed him. His right hand slipped down again between his stomach and the mattress.

"Arima," he moaned. "God, Arima." There was light in his wide-open eyes, enough light to blind him. He gasped hard as he came, lost in the light. He closed his eyes to keep out it out and the inside of his eyelids shone red.

Minutes passed in the little bedroom. Hideaki's breathing gradually slowed and he heard the noises of cars going by outside his window, a cheesy pop ballad playing on his clock radio. It was time to get up, take a shower, and go to school. His cooling skin felt raw and sticky. There were warm tears smeared on his pillow, drying on his face. He didn't know why or how they'd gotten there.

-

According to the rumor going around school, Arima was going to be on television. When the gang met to eat lunch together that day, Tsubaki lost no time in confirming it.

"This is going to be awesome!" she declared when Arima acknowledged the event reluctantly. "You have to introduce us if they ask about your friends."

Arima clutched his head with sudden anxiety. "This was a huge mistake. I'll look like an idiot up there. I can't believe that advisor talked me into it."

"Relax," Yukino said, touching his shoulder. "You'll look great. You know how proud your parents and friends are. Even my family is looking forward to it. Give them a little treat for once."

Hideaki sat on the windowsill in the back of the room, but he could see clearly the way Arima's face changed at her words, the tension smoothing out, opening into a slight smile. Yukino smiled back, glowing with encouragement, but Hideaki remembered her words in the courtyard: _"It's a little frightening to think that I might always be beneath him." _A vague discomfort grew in his mind, an unfocused image of Arima rising above his friends and classmates to some lonely, isolated summit in the sky.

"You'll have to manage his publicity from now on, Yukinon," Tsubaki said.

"I'll arrange talk show appearances and signings," Aya joked. "If you get a book deal, I'd be happy to work as your ghost writer."

"We have to pick out his wardrobe first," Yukino told them. "I'm sure Rika could design some of my ideas." She rubbed her hands together comically to assure Arima she was only teasing. Arima's smile widened slightly at their light words, but his eyes were strangely distant in their polite attention.

-

Hideaki stopped briefly by the crowded conference room where the camera crew had set up to film the show. A crowd of excited students had gathered outside the half-open doors, watching the TV crew get ready. Arima stood to the side, listening to a balding man in a suit. He wore a simple yukata that wrapped his lean body in graceful elegance. Beneath his smooth, black hair, his eyes were bright, attentive, and sharp with intelligence.

The familiar jab of attraction pulled at Hideaki's heart, but standing in the crowd of whispering admirers, he realized that he was nothing more than another one of them, another worshipful animal in the herd, following the call of someone who towered above them all.

"He looks so handsome when he's in his kendo uniform," one girl murmured to her friend. "I nearly faint every time I see him."

Hideaki backed out of the crowd and walked slowly away. He had no destination, but he ended up in the little grove outside the courtyard with the decorative stone pillar where he had first seen Arima two years ago. _What a strange person I was,_ he thought, _so preoccupied with meaningless things. I saw him there but I was so blind, I didn't really. I just saw myself, my own stupid needs._

He sat on the bench and stared at the pillar in the trees but it gave him no answers. Arima wasn't there anymore. Idly, he ran a hand over the rough surface of the bench. Some one had scratched a message in the corner with something hard and sharp (a nail?): _Kaze ga suki Sora_. Wind loves Sky. He didn't know if someone was just being poetic or if there were actually people named Kaze and Sora at the school. The marks were light and shallow; the words would fade quickly.

"Um, Asaba-kun?" A girl's voice came from behind him. He turned to see her looking at him plaintively, a slightly familiar face that he couldn't place.

"Can I help you?" he asked smoothly.

She looked down at her feet, blushing slightly and he remembered the brunette first-year staring at him in the hall. Her chin jerked up bravely then to meet his gaze at last.

"I… wondered if I could talk to you."

She had her hair pulled back in pigtails with bits of sparkly gold ribbon. One was tied in a tight bow while the other hung loosely, dangling glittery ends. Her wide, guileless eyes watched him bashfully.

"Do you remember me?" she asked. "I didn't really think you would."

"I remember seeing you in the hall on the first day of school," he relied lamely.

"We went to the same junior high," she said, scraping one heel against the paved ground. "You were really popular there too."

"Oh…" he racked his brain, trying to place her among the array of faces from middle school.

"My name is Megumi," she said helpfully. "Megumi Ayato. I was two grades below you."

"Ah, Megumi-chan." He had a faint memory of a small, shy girl in the back of the room when his admirers gathered around him.

She smiled. "Are you just pretending to remember me now? You'll break my heart again, Asaba-kun."

Hideaki blinked. He had no memory of ever dating or even flirting with Megumi. "Sit here," he said, patting the bench beside him. "I'm very sorry if I ever did anything to hurt you, Ayato-san. Maybe you could remind me of what I should apologize for."

She sat on the other end of the bench, careful not to touch him or look at him too much. "It's really nothing," she murmured. "I completely overreacted to your kindness, that's all."

"Tell me about it," he insisted, watching her attentively.

"Do you remember Valentines Day?" she asked, biting her bottom lip.

"In Junior High?"

"I was twelve." She traced the seam on her skirt with her index finger. Her eyelashes covered her half-closed eyes. "I found a small package of chocolates on my desk with a sweet note from you. I could hardly breathe, I was so excited." She inhaled slowly, not looking at him. "Then I found out that you had given one to every girl in the junior high classes. It must have taken you hours to write all those notes and separate all that chocolate. You made sure every girl in the school knew she was special. But really, I felt none of us were special— not to you at least."

Hideaki watched the movement of her lips without speaking. He remembered that year now, the valiant romantic gesture toward every girl in the school. He remembered writing to the girls to tell them that the holidays should be switched so that women could receive their gifts first instead of buying for the boys and waiting until White Day to be rewarded. Now that he thought about it, there was something sickeningly arrogant in his gracious benevolence, his chivalrous assumptions.

She still didn't meet his eyes. "On White Day, you received dozens of gifts, of course. I baked my own cookies for you. They were shaped like little ducklings and frosted with icing— lemon flavored, I think. I never gave them to you. You sent a lovely thank-you note to every girl who gave you something. I didn't get one. I was afraid. I wanted to be acknowledged by you, to have something from you… but I was more afraid to be just another silly girl, no different from the rest."

"I'm so sorry," Hideaki said quietly. "I never, never meant—"

"I know," Megumi interrupted, her voice reassuring. "You didn't do anything wrong. You're one of the sweetest boys I've ever known. It would have been better if you were a jerk or had a girlfriend. It would have been easier to let you go." She smiled up at him, finally looking straight into his eyes. "It's strange, seeing you now. You're not quite what I remembered."

He was surprised by how calm she looked, as if her confession had washed away the fear and hesitation. She tilted her head to survey him curiously. "I wonder… do you have anyone to love you yet, Asaba-kun?"

He felt oddly frozen at those words, a numb sensation in his chest spreading to his stomach and throat. His hands gripped the stone until it hurt.

"Not… not that I'm still obsessed over you or anything!" Megumi exclaimed quickly. "I mean, I have a boyfriend now and everything… I just wanted to know how you were doing after all this time."

Hideaki recovered quickly, flashing a grin of pure confidence. "Me? I'm doing great. Everyone loves me, you know."

"Of course." Her smile came more easily, brightening her eyes. "Of course. I should have known that wouldn't change."

-

Hideaki stood on the roof of the school, staring out at the sky. With his eyes turned to the vast stretch of heaven above, it was easy to pretend that there was no tile beneath his feet, no green grounds, no stiff school buildings, only the pure emptiness that surrounded him.

"_Close your eyes and you can fly,"_ his mother had told him when he was just a toddler. She had held him over her head with one hand on his chest and the other on his thighs, balancing him above her body as she lay on the bed. _"Higher!"_ he had ordered, but her arms were only so long and they'd quickly grew tired. He'd whined as she set him down on the warm, soft bed and she had told him to be a good boy. _"Mommy loves you when you're a good boy."_ Hideaki was not a good boy.

The door to the roof opened with a loud creak and Hideaki turned to see Arima step out onto the smooth tile of the roof.

"Hey handsome," Hideaki called. "Got away from the fan club already?"

"Shut up," Arima said mildly. He crossed the roof to the railing where Hideaki stood with his back pressed against the bars.

"I thought you'd try to get into the filming and get your face on TV," Arima said, setting both hands on the railing beside his friend.

Hideaki shook his head ruefully. "No, you're the star of the week this time, Soichiro. I wouldn't dream of stealing your glory."

"You know I hate it," Arima grumbled, frowning at the other boy. "I never would have agreed on this unless I had to."

"I know, I know." Hideaki admitted. "It's just scary for Yukinon and me to see you so famous now. It's like you're getting farther away from us all the time."

"But I'm not," Arima insisted. "I'm no different than before. I really don't know why all these people are following me around. Yesterday at lunch, some girl asked if she could keep my used napkin for her collection." He groaned. "Why me, Asaba?"

Hideaki smiled and leaned back into the railing, letting his head fall back. A light wind ruffled his hair. Next to him, Arima stood, a solid, magnetic presence. "Do you ever look in the mirror?" he asked.

Arima snorted softly. "Do _you_ ever look in the mirror?"

Hideaki's eyes popped open and his head turned to scrutinize the boy beside him. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

Arima looked out over the grounds, a frown gathered between his eyes. "How should I know? You asked it first, idiot."

"I'm perfectly aware of my own self-worth and beauty," Hideaki insisted. "You, on the other hand, seem determined to put yourself down at every opportunity when you should be enjoying your good fortune, good looks, perfect grades, and wonderful girlfriend. Everyone loves you except you."

Arima didn't answer, continuing to gaze out at the landscape below. His forearms rested on top of the railing and he leaned into it, staring pensively. Hideaki let the long silence go, waiting for his friend to speak. The wind cooled his neck, playing with his hair and jacket.

"I'm going to a wedding tomorrow," Arima said at last. "My entire family will be there."

"Yukino told me," Hideaki said quietly. "Do you think you'll have problems with them?"

Arima scratched at the silver paint on the railing with his thumbnails. "When I was a kid, everyone expected me to play with the other cousins, like I was one of them, just another member of the gang. But I wasn't. They made sure I knew that." He bent over farther so that his chin rested on his arms. Hideaki watched him silently, listening.

"They told me that I had to prove my courage. So I sat with my hands tied behind my back with a jump rope while they poked me with Aunt Eiko's sewing needles. They were cautious at first, just little pricks, but then they became more confident and started stabbing needles into my arms, my back… When Kei said he was going to poke one into my eye, I tried to run… For that, I got kicked in the stomach and locked in the closet for three hours." A rough grain of anger had crept into his formerly level voice. "And it only got worse. I nearly drowned once and another time they packed snow around me to hide me from Dad and left me outside for several hours. I didn't know how to hate them. I was too scared."

Hideaki felt slippery dread and nausea swell in his stomach at the images Arima's words evoked but he kept his expression neutral. "You never told anyone," he guessed.

"I didn't want to cause my parents trouble. They questioned me many times, but Aunt Eiko always assured them that we were just boys playing and I corroborated her story, terrified of angering anyone. Mom and Dad eventually just made sure that I was never left alone with them and we avoided most family events."

"…but you can't avoid this one," Hideaki finished with a sigh. "Well, at least you get to wear a suit. I'm sure you could beat up your cousins if they tried anything now so there's no need to worry about getting knocked around."

"Yeah," Arima agreed. "I just have to listen to their shit about me and Mom and Dad. Sometimes I can't stand it and I just have to go somewhere inside myself if there's no where else. But it doesn't stop it from hurting…" He closed his yes and bit his lip. "The cousins aren't the worst. It's Aunt Eiko _the hag _who knows exactly how much poison she can get away with. I swear sometimes I think I might be able to kill her… she makes me angry enough."

Leaning on the railing, Arima didn't look enraged at all. There was a certain brooding bitterness about his pose, a hidden, secretive energy in his frame that frightened and intrigued Hideaki, like passing his hand over a blue flame. He touched Arima's elbow, a vague ache in his throat.

"I think we all feel that way sometimes. There've been times when my parents made me feel so scared and angry that I wanted to hurt them in any way I could. But I didn't, Soichiro, and neither will you." He took a few deep breaths. It occurred to him that a lie lingered in that sentence that he didn't want to address immediately. Hideaki continued, "The truth is, we all have some kind of darkness inside us, but we choose whether or not to act on it, I guess. It doesn't make you a bad person. It's no reason to hate yourself."

Arima laughed roughly, not raising his head from his arms. "You sound like some sappy guidance counselor, Asaba."

"Sorry." Hideaki chuckled self-consciously. "Eh, Miyazawa said I'm not very good at giving pep talks."

"You suck," Arima pronounced, turning his head to give Hideaki a despairing look but the tension had gone from his shoulders and his voice was light with amusement.

Hideaki gripped the railing again and took a deep breath of the sky. A high whistle sounded from the soccer field, like the shrill note of a bird. Having Arima beside him was infinitely more comforting than any stale memories of his mother's forgotten affection.

-

The next morning he found Megumi studying in the library with a friend. She looked up at him in surprise but he only winked conspiratorially and tucked an envelope into the front pocket of the brown school satchel that hung over the back of her chair.

"Forgive my lateness," he implored, offering a quick, charming smile. He left the library and the two speechless girls without another word. Inside the cream colored envelope were two tickets to a concert and a short note written in a strong, confident hand.

_Dear Megumi-chan,_

_I must thank you for your delightful gift of the duck-shaped cookies. How did you guess that lemon was my flavor of choice? You are clearly a very kind and intelligent young lady. You were even thoughtful enough not to give the treats to me, obviously understanding my need to keep my figure. Please accept these tickets as a token of my gratitude and take your lucky young man out for the night. I offer myself if you are ever in need._

_Sincerely,_

_Asaba Hideaki_

-

Hideaki pushed his paper forward and sighed with relief. All around him, students fidgeted with their writing utensils, scratched their necks nervously, or hunched over their exams, rushing to finish. Hideaki wasn't worried. Certainly he didn't expect to make any top thirty lists, but he had managed to get along in school well enough, with Arima's tutoring. The others in the group often formed study sessions with Arima and Yukino but Hideaki's class schedule was different so he rarely got to attend them.

The class rep came around to pick up the finished exams, frowning when he saw Hideaki's. Hideaki always doodled on the front of his tests to give the rep and teachers something interesting to grumble about. Yesterday it had been an octopus escaping a deep-fryer. Today it was a large panda bear smoking a cigarette. The stolid class rep always treated the discovery with frigid disgust or simply pretended not to care, but Hideaki noticed whose desk his eyes went to first when the time came to pick up the finished exams.

When the signal for the end of class came, Hideaki was the first out the door. The halls were mostly empty as classes were still in session in most rooms. Hideaki sat on the wide space of the window ledge and fumbled in his backpack for his math textbook, thinking to brush up on some formulas before the exam. He also located the smooth, round shape his CD player. Before he could pull out the headphones a distant shout drew his eyes to the scene outside the window in time to see Arima deck another boy with the back of his fist.

His CD player and textbook clattered to the floor. Hideaki pressed his nose against the glass, straining to see better. There were two strange boys with Arima, both dressed in expensive-looking private school uniforms. The boy who had been hit was touching his face gingerly, supported by his companion who was shouting at Arima, clearly enraged. Hideaki only caught the words _"…told by our parents!"_

Arima watched them from a short distance, not speaking at all. His posture radiated cold, disdainful anger. _You are beneath me_, his body language said. _You can't touch me_. Hideaki shifted back from the window, watching the unknown boys stumble away from Arima. The dark hatred in Arima's face seared into Hideaki's mind. Somehow it was different from the icy indifference and unbridled jealousy that Hideaki had seen before, this tightly controlled rage that simmered behind his friend's normally calm face.

When Arima entered the school again, Hideaki was there to meet him, watching the purpose in his stride, the suppressed anger in the hard line of his mouth. Arima came to Hideaki who touched his face lightly with one hand, almost expecting to be burned, but Arima's skin was smooth and cool from the outside air.

"What happened, Soichiro?"

"They came here… to my _school_," Arima spat. "They said they wanted to be friends now… that they hated Kei-chan and only picked on me because of Aunt Eiko. Those filthy little bastards."

He turned his head and Hideaki's hand slid away. He said nothing, unsure of what to think. Arima standing up for himself was a good thing. Arima beating people up and walking around looking like pure murder was not so good.

"You were right, Asaba. I know kendo. I'm not the weak, pitiful kid they used to tie up with jumpropes. Everyone thinks I'm someone now, whether they like it or not; they can't ignore me and I won't let them hurt me or my parents anymore. Someday I'll make the Arima clan pay for the way they treated us." He turned away and began to pace down the hall.

Close behind him, Hideaki nodded, understanding Arima's righteous resentment. "Not playing the good boy anymore?" he asked wryly.

Arima smiled slowly, without warmth or amusement. A chill tingled Hideaki's palms and the back of his neck. "Oh, I'll be good. The model student, the responsible son, the perfect boyfriend. Easy roles. I need to play them to survive, to keep from losing everything. But that doesn't mean I can't get back at the people who would sooner see me dead than happy."

"_And this will make you happy?"_ Hideaki wanted to ask. "You're not telling Miyazawa any of this," he guessed, feeling a weary fear seep into his bones.

Arima gave him a look that could have frozen lighter fluid. "She's all I have left. Do you really think I'm going to jeopardize the most important relationship in my life?"

"Why are you telling me then?" Hideaki asked in pained frustration, and immediately wished he hadn't. The bond of trust he had with Arima was something that he avoided probing too much for fear that it would burst like a fragile soap bubble. Sometimes he could hardly tell if Arima saw him as a friend at all.

Arima lifted an eyebrow quizzically. "I don't know… I thought you understood and I know there's no one you would tell…" He trailed off, frowning slightly.

"You can't keep everything inside yourself forever," Hideaki said quietly, "and you can't hide yourself from Miyazawa forever. She's pretty damn sharp."

Arima shook his head slowly, still gazing into the distance. The hall began to fill with students emerging from classes. Hideaki touched Arima's back lightly, just enough to feel the tight muscles, the firm solidity of his form. Arima stopped walking and looked back into Hideaki's serious face.

"Do you really think that lying to the person you love will make you happy?"

Arima was silent, watching the floor with his hidden eyes for so long that Hideaki thought he wouldn't say anything. Finally he spoke in low voice. "You don't know anything about it, Asaba. Don't pretend you do."

In his ears, Hideaki's pulse pounded a steady rhythm. The tips of his fingers felt numb. Later he would let that hurt in. Later he would think about those words. Now he had to think, to react lucidly. "I know Yukino," he said firmly, forgoing her surname.

Ducking his head, Arima gave a half-laugh that sounded more like a gasp. His eyes darted up to Hideaki's, glistening with a sad, desperate bitterness. "Being ourselves always worked better for her," he said.

Hideaki followed his gaze forward. Yukino, Aya, and Maho came down the hall toward them then and Arima smiled to greet them, like switching on a light in an empty room.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN:** I know I'm making you wait too long for these chapters, but at least I'm updating within the same month, right? Okay, three to four more chapters, I figure. I have it pretty much planned out and I hope you won't hate my canon-killing ending.

At the time of this writing, vol. 17 is the most recent book published by Tokyopop. I have located some spoilers for the end of the series so I have a basic idea of what happens, but don't expect me to follow the manga entirely faithfully. Thanks for reading, everyone.

**Chapter Nine**

Hideaki knew everyone would be watching Arima's television appearance after school. Arima and Miyazawa had skipped that day, presumably to avoid the excessive attention, and if they didn't intend to watch it, neither did Hideaki.

When he got home after classes, he tossed his bag on the floor and took off his rumpled uniform. He pulled on a red denim jacket over a tight white shirt and dark jeans. His hair only needed a little artful disarrangement to stand out attractively against his fair skin. He smiled disarmingly at his reflection in the mirror and turned to leave the apartment.

Outside, he stopped briefly to help a pair of little girls. They were attempting to coax their cat off the top of the tall fence that surrounded the apartment complex. The animal was a large gray-striped tabby whose heavy belly bulged against Hideaki's chest as the boy lifted the animal from its perch. Both girls were very shy, taking the cat from him with bashful smiles before hurrying back into their unit. Hideaki brushed the white-gray hairs off his jacket and continued down the street toward the busier part of town.

He stopped at a news stand to buy a fashion magazine before entering the little shop on the corner to order a bowl of yakisoba noodles. Perched on the worn stool, he flipped through his magazine as he slurped contentedly at the noodles, admiring the slender models and the cut of their clothes. The shop was mostly empty except for a depressed-looking salaryman on the far stool. The proprietor fiddled with his tiny television, switching from the lopsided baseball game to Arima's smooth, handsome face. Hideaki choked on a noodle and coughed violently. The salaryman gave him a sympathetic look and the cook ignored him completely. After several bouts of coughing, Hideaki finally expelled the last fragments of noodle and sauce from his throat, blinking watery eyes.

"You're at the top of your class," the woman on the television was saying. "You're a kendo champion. Surely you must be very popular at your school."

"Not really," Arima replied politely. He seemed to glow with youthful vitality, so strong and confident-looking in the dark-colored yukata. Even the droopy salaryman had stopped eating to watch his face.

"I can only imagine how proud your parents are," the interviewer said. She had a kind, distracted expression on her tanned features. The edge of her darker roots showed beneath her dye job. Beside Arima's perfection, she was just another mediocre, aging nobody. "They are truly blessed to have a son like you."

"I try my hardest never to disappoint them," Arima said.

Hideaki's throat still burned from coughing and an insidious sickness had begun to churn in his stomach. If he had ever been capable of hating Arima it would be now. He stood up, leaving his half-eaten dinner and magazine on the counter. The salaryman glanced back at him in surprise as he pushed open the door and walked away.

-

Hideaki had always been aware of something in himself that his father could never accept. As a child, he had played tea-party and dress-up with the neighborhood girls. He had no interest in sports or business. When his father had given him a baseball bat for his seventh birthday, he'd been severely disappointed until he'd realized it would make a perfect club for an ogre or a sword for a prince.

As far as he could tell, his mother had enjoyed his early performances with the girls when they eagerly urged her to watch their latest play, puppet show, or choreographed dance. She had baked cookies for their parties and made them lunches when they came home from school. She'd always had the perfect music to play for all occasions.

His father, on the other hand, hadn't see his son's creativity as a gift. When he had brought Hideaki to work, the boy quickly grew bored and resorted to cutting and folding paper cups in the break room into flowers, hats, and alien flying saucers. When he had showed them to his father, the man scolded him harshly and threw his creations into the trash, afraid of what his coworkers might think of the waste.

Hideaki was nine when his father told him that he had to stop seeing the girls and spend more time on homework or athletics. If he wanted to play, he ought to play with boys, after all.

Hideaki had been incredulous. "No way! You're joking, right?"

His dad hadn't been. He'd gripped Hideaki's shoulder tightly and asked him if he wanted to disappoint his mother who only wanted a son of whom she could be proud.

Hideaki's gaze had gone to his mom sitting in the corner of the kitchen with her hands in her lap. Her eyes had avoided his and her face had been drawn with distress.

For a short time, Hideaki had tried to be a good boy, forcing himself to focus on homework and joining the junior baseball team at his school. After one miserable week though, he gave it all up and went back to his sanctuary with the girls, drawing their portraits and directing their games. Of course, there had been punishment involved when his father had discovered his absences from baseball practice, but Hideaki had endured it and swore never to give up his own happiness to please his parents. He had told himself that no one could be worth that kind of sacrifice.

Hideaki was twelve when his father told him that he was an idiot. He had just failed a major math test and the teacher had called to tell his parents that she was very concerned.

"I could have passed it," Hideaki had argued. "I just didn't feel like studying."

The expression on his father's face had frightened him. His father had asked if he wanted to end up in a lousy public high school and a dead-end job because that was where he was heading. His father had told him that he was just like his grandfather, a lazy, neglectful person who never took anything seriously.

"You're wrong," Hideaki had declared resentfully, fists clenching on his thighs. "You're dead wrong." His mother had been washing the dishes in the kitchen. She hadn't even looked up.

Hideaki was fourteen when his father told him he was an embarrassment to the family. It hadn't been such a surprise in the aftermath of the college intern/babysitter fiasco. Both his parents had been sitting on the couch and he had sat facing them, remarkably calm considering the circumstances. His mother had been crying silently at the time, he remembered, wiping at her reddened eyes. His dad's eyes, however, had smoldered with disgust. Sweat had marked his face as he asked Hideaki what would happen if the girl became pregnant.

"God, she uses birth control, of course," Hideaki had retorted irritably. He wasn't stupid, he watched TV.

His dad had railed on about what the company would think if they found out that his son had had intimate relations with one of their interns.

"It's none of their business," Hideaki had replied fiercely. "She came on to me, you know. It's not like I'm some creepy old pervert trading positions for blowjobs."

His father had told him to shut up, that he was a disgrace, an ungrateful son, and he was breaking his mother's heart. Next to him, she had wiped at her eyes with the wadded tissue, but had said nothing. After that, Hideaki had also refused to speak, to be drawn deeper into his father's shame. He had already decided not to believe anything his father told him.

He was not an idiot. He had worked hard and managed to get into the top school in the prefecture, the prestigious Hokuei High. At the age of fifteen, he had moved into his own apartment near the school. His parents paid for everything, paid for him to stay away— and he was glad to be away, to live his own life.

All the same, certain moments still brought back memories with haunting clarity. Passing bakeries reminded him of the desserts his mother baked for tea parties, the smell of her kitchen. Certain songs brought back her face, her blue-veined hands touching the plastic CD cases. There were still nights when he looked up at the stars surrounding the pale curve of the moon and thought of the warm strength of his father's firm shoulders under his small legs, the feel of his dad's wiry hair in his chubby fingers.

-

When he got back to his apartment there was a message on the machine.

"Hey Asaba, it's Arisu. I know this is kind of random but I just broke up with a guy and I was wondering if you felt like getting together sometime. Probably not; you're a serious student, right? Ha, ha, I know. I'm just a lonely flake but I remember how much fun you were. Call me if you want to do something. You still got my cell number? I'll give it to you anyway."

Hideaki listened to her rattle off the number. He remembered the endless string of festivals and parties he had attended with Arisu. It had certainly been fun but they had never gone beyond flirting or become close at all. Eventually she had found another guy, but had made sure to tell Hideaki that they would always be friends. After that, he had been to several parties with her but he had started seeing other girls and she moved away with her boyfriend for the summer. He hadn't heard from her in a few months.

Since Arisu, Hideaki had dated two other girls. Chika was a pleasant young woman who had worked at the music store but moved to Tokyo to start college. Shortly after she left, he had met a girl named Shoko at the movie theater. She had been very cute, but also very clingy and accused him of cheating on her with every woman he looked at. He had been infinitely relieved when she finally broke it off , telling him tearfully that he didn't want to know her and didn't give her the intimacy she craved. However, Arisu had been a good experience and he certainly owed a friend in need. He picked up the phone and invited her to dinner at his apartment the following night.

-

Tuesday was just like any other school day for Hideaki and he went through it as he always had, knowing nothing of the sudden turmoil Arima had to face. Tonami and Tsubaki were waiting for him when he came out of his last class whistling cheerfully.

"Who is she, Asapin?" Tsubaki demanded.

"Eh?" Hideaki blinked and looked at her, surprised to see her there.

"That woman! That woman Arima left with! Who the hell is she? It's driving us crazy." She shook her clenched fists for emphasis.

Tonami touched her shoulder, clearly embarrassed. "Um, we just saw Arima leave with a strange woman and we wondered if you knew who she might be and why… why he left Miyazawa to go with her.

"Of course Asaba knows her!" Tsubaki insisted to her boyfriend. "She's exactly the sort of woman this playboy would know and foist off on his friend."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hideaki said honestly, bewildered but slightly amused by Tsubaki's accusation. "What did she look like?"

Tonami bit his lip thoughtfully, a slight flush on his cheeks. "Well, she was older… but still very attractive… long, blonde hair, nice clothes, seemed kind of experienced. I—"

"She looked like an expensive ho," Tsubaki interrupted firmly.

Hideaki frowned, putting on his _'I'm hurt that you would think that of me'_ expression. "I really don't know anyone like that, and if I did, why would I introduce her to Arima?"

Tsubaki shrugged her shoulders vaguely, her interest already leaving now that she sensed the trail had gone cold. "You guys are always hanging out together. You're bound to corrupt him someday, if you haven't already."

"Sorry, Asaba," Tonami apologized. "We were just curious."

They left Hideaki then, bickering quietly as they went but Hideaki couldn't get the matter out of his head. He had no idea who the mystery woman might be to Arima and that bothered him quite a bit. Surely his best friend who confided in him regularly would have mentioned something like this. There was no way he could be cheating on Yukino, Hideaki knew that much for sure.

On his way home he stopped at the grocery store to buy curry, shrimp and vegetables for the evening's meal. When he reached the apartment, he phoned Arima's house but apparently the boy hadn't returned home yet from school. Hideaki turned up his stereo and set himself to the task of preparing dinner.

When he opened the door for Arisu, he noticed she was thinner than he remembered and there was an unfamiliar sadness in her eyes. She was dressed in plain clothes, a thin white t-shirt and light sky-blue pants. Her wavy copper colored hair hung down her back like a bright banner.

"It's so good to see you," she said, mouth curving into a smile. "Whatever is cooking smells wonderful."

"I'm glad to see you too, but you should have brought a coat," he said looking at her bare arms and sandaled feet. "It's not summer any more."

"I know." She rubbed her upper arms, looking somewhat abashed. "I… When I left Sousuke— my ex, I didn't bring everything. All my winter stuff is still at his place and I'm too ashamed to go back for it right now." There was a distant look in her light eyes. "I guess…I hoped it would be summer forever."

The oven timer went off shrilly. He led her to a seat at the table and ran to take the vegetables off the stove. "You know I'll help you with anything, right?" he said, loading dishes of food onto a tray. She nodded and he set the dishes on the table in front of her. "Where are you living now?"

"I'm renting a little apartment," she said. "My parents are always telling me that it eats up my paycheck but it's definitely better than staying with them." The last words were said jokingly.

Smiling affably at her words, he spooned the shrimp and curry onto their plates. _At least your parents want you to be with them_, he thought cynically. Realizing that she was watching his face curiously, he drew it back into an attentive mask.

Arisu shifted in her seat and twisted her chopsticks in the curry restlessly. "You never told me why you don't live with your family," she said quietly.

He recognized the look in her eyes, the same cautious, probing gaze that Yukino, Rika, and countless other girls had given him. _"Sometimes I look at you and I wonder who you really are."_

"It's a long story," he said with a shrug. "Basically, I value my independence, like you and living on my own has definitely given me the responsibility that my parents always begged me to show." He grinned to lighten the mood. "Of course, they don't know about all the wild beer parties I throw."

She smiled in return and lifted a pale clam to her mouth, chewing it slowly. "I envy you this apartment. Mine always seem so cold and all I have is this space blanket from an emergency kit someone gave me."

"A space blanket?" he questioned.

"You know, those shiny, silvery things? It's not thick at all, but I guess it somehow traps or attracts heat… the surface reflect light. It's weird that something so thin and insubstantial can keep me warm."

"You need to go shopping," Hideaki said.

"I know." She laughed. I can't imagine what you must think of this outfit."

"That's not what I meant," he insisted, nearly choking on his curry.

"Relax," she said, eyes bright and cunning. "I didn't feel guilty until I saw how good you looked."

"Hey," he said, waving his chopsticks at her. "Don't hit on me when I'm eating; it's distracting."

They engaged in light conversation until the end of the meal, sharing anecdotes about the events they had been to and bad jokes about her ex-boyfriend. Hideaki stored the leftovers in the fridge and began to rinse off the dishes before setting them in his ancient dishwasher. He heard Arisu come up behind him, felt her breath on the back of his neck.

"That choker is really sexy on you," she said, touching the dark cord around his throat. The tips of her fingers were warm and dry on his skin. "Are you eighteen yet, Asaba-kun?"

"January," he replied cheerfully, setting the last of the plates on the top rack.

"So would I get in trouble for seducing you, you think?"

"Lewd acts with a minor," he offered with a chuckle. He shut the dishwasher and straightened again. Her hands went to his waist and her head rested on his shoulder.

"Are we going to be friends forever?" she asked, voice muffled by his shirt.

"No matter what," he said. Her hands massaged his ribs. Inwardly he weighed his options, assessed his desire. Arisu was giving off enough signals to start her own radio network and she was obviously lonely. He could relieve the sexual tension that plagued his body and they could still be friends. Arisu was no innocent schoolgirl and though she might be unreliable, she wasn't stupid. She wouldn't read too much into comfort sex.

Her hands ran under his shirt to touch the skin of his back and she kissed the side of his neck. Hideaki frowned absently, wondering if the quick stop store on the corner sold condoms or if there was a delicate way to ask Arisu about her contraceptive program.

The ringing of the doorbell pierced the silence of the apartment. Hideaki's head jerked back just as Arisu turned hers toward the sound and their sculls knocked together painfully.

"Agh" she groaned.

Hideaki rubbed the side of his head and apologized. The doorbell rang emphatically a second time. "Alright, I'm coming!" he called. His bare feet sprinted across the floor to the door. Who at this time of night?

He opened the door and Arima's face looked back into his, blank of emotion. He still wore his school uniform and his book bag was slung over one shoulder. Hideaki sniffed the air deeply, confused and surprised. Arima reeked of expensive perfume.

"Bath," Arima said.

Hideaki stared dumbly and forced himself to thrust half a dozen unbidden fantasies out of his mind. "Bath?"

"I need to use your bath and stay for the night." Arima's gaze moved from Hideaki's face to just over his shoulder. "Oh, I didn't know that you had company. Sorry."

_Arisu,_ Hideaki thought with a sudden uncharacteristic flash of resentment. _She would be here now._

"Who is it?" her voice asked from just behind him. "A friend?"

Hideaki ignored her. Arima was starting to back away, polite habits taking over, and Hideaki caught his arm to keep him from leaving. "You came here for a reason, right?" he demanded. His mouth was right next to Arima's ear, his voice low, and the fragrance of the perfume filled his nostrils. "I'm not letting you leave. She was going anyway."

Determined, he led Arima through the apartment to the bathroom. After leaving his friend with a change of clothes, Hideaki returned to the living room where Arisu sat. She smiled knowingly up at him. "You didn't even introduce us."

"Sorry." Hideaki rubbed one bare foot against the other, warming them. "He's my best friend from school. I don't want to make you leave but I think he might be in trouble."

Arisu stood and looked at him, eyes clear and sad. "He must be pretty special." She pulled a half-smile. "You know, I didn't really believe Reiko when she warned me you kept everyone at a distance. You seemed like such an open person. I was wrong, but it looks like she was too."

Hideaki said nothing. He wanted to feel sorry for her, to be able to make her happy, but Arima was there in his apartment, in his bathroom, sleek with the spray of the shower tool and Hideaki had room for nothing else in his mind.

"I think he needs me," he told Arisu and the words lifted something in his chest, made him feel stronger somehow.

"Great." The sarcasm in her voice was light. "Maybe I can stick around and we can start group therapy sessions with the incredibly empathetic Asaba."

Hideaki smiled gently but didn't reply_. I don't want to hurt you_, he thought, _but I can't heal you either_. She moved closer in a few steps and her hand lifted toward him as though she might touch his face but she didn't. Nodding slightly, she backed away.

"Thank you for dinner, Asaba," she said. He followed her to the door but she told him that he didn't need to walk her out. "Hurry back to him," she said as she opened the door, and he wasn't sure if her voice was light with teasing or scorn.

He closed the door behind her, thinking that he had meant to give her the leftovers from the meal. Now he only wanted to heat them up for Arima. Hideaki went to the door of the bathroom and listened to the hissing of the water. Arima's showers and baths were usually brief and practical but this night he took a long, hot cleansing that lasted nearly an hour. Hideaki laid out extra bedding on the floor, put Arima's discarded clothes in the washing machine, and heated water for tea as he waited for his friend.

Arima came out of the bathroom smelling of Hideaki's soap and shampoo. His hair was damp and tousled from the towel. Hideaki's clothes were a little large on him and the sleeves hung past his thumb. Although he had smoothed his face into a blank mask there were hints of fear in his eyes and his shoulders were braced stiffly as though he were expecting to face an interrogation from the other boy.

"Have you eaten yet?" Hideaki asked. He poured himself a cup of hot tea.

Arima smiled awkwardly. "No, not yet."

Hideaki opened the fridge and took out the food. "Does seafood curry sound good?" he asked cheerfully.

"Yes," Arima said softly. "Thank you."

Hideaki heated the food, poured the tea, and turned on the television. They watched evening sitcoms as Arima ate the meal that Hideaki had prepared for Arisu, saying nothing to each other. Hideaki was in no hurry. Arima would speak to him when he felt like it. He laughed quietly at the jokes on the shows and watched Arima slowly relax in the calming environment.

"I'm sorry your girlfriend had to leave," Arima said. "Is she new? I've never met her before."

"She's not really my girlfriend," Hideaki explained. "She's just a friend who came over to dinner. We used to date… sort of, but not anymore."

Arima shook his head, mouth twisting. He gave Hideaki a skeptical look. "Are you ever serious about anyone?"

The palms of Hideaki's hands stuck to the smooth surface of the table. He felt a dangerous urge rise in his throat. "I'm serious about you," he said, biting the inside of his cheek. Arima raised an eyebrow and Hideaki forced a laugh. "I mean, I don't throw beautiful women out of my apartment for just anyone, you know."

Arima smiled, rubbing his empty plate with his chopsticks. "Well, I don't really understand you, Asaba, but I am grateful."

They cleaned up the dishes and went to brush their teeth at the sink. Arima had no qualms about using Hideaki's rinsed toothbrush and he rubbed it over his teeth stoically, his dark head reflected on the clear expanse of the mirror. Hideaki thought of the messages he had used to write in toothpaste to get a reaction from his friend. Those times seemed so far away now.

In the living room, he watched Arima crawl into his makeshift bed on the floor mats, turned off the lights, and went to his place beside the other boy. There was no noise at all besides the growl of vehicles outside and the rustle of Arima shifting onto his back. Hideaki could almost count the slight exhalations of his friend's breath. Arima's black eyes stared at the ceiling.

"My birth mother came to school today," Arima said at last, his words cutting the silence like the subtlest of knives. "She works in clubs and she came up to me in front of my friends after I told her I didn't want to see her. She wants me to go out with her all the time now."

"I heard she came to school," Hideaki replied. "Tsubaki seemed to think that I knew her for some reason."

"You wouldn't," Arima said bitterly. "She's a conniving bitch. I'm pretty sure she's as good at manipulating people as I am, if not better. I just inherited the family trait." He laughed darkly, a hissing sound. "She made me promise to meet her again."

Hideaki digested this information silently. That explained the perfume at least. "Why did she come back after all these years?"

"She saw me on TV. She said that the Arima family didn't approve of her. I guess my dad fathered me when he was only seventeen. He was an illegitimate son too. Apparently that runs in the family as well." Arima's voice burned with derision.

Hideaki could have reached out and touched the boy lying next to him. He felt frightened and elated at the nearness of his desire. Awareness tingled in his fingers and his stomach. The walls around them, the blanket of darkness created a safe, secret place for them. Hideaki wanted to curl his body around Arima's and shield him from everything, but this was enough for now, lying here with him had to be enough.

"You are not your parents," he said softly. "Remember that, Soichiro. Whatever they did doesn't make you any less of a person."

"I know," Arima replied, his voice breathy and insubstantial, hovering on the edge of sleep. Hideaki rolled carefully onto his side, facing Arima's still body. He watched the indistinct outline of his sleeping friend until weariness overtook him and he closed his eyes to the warm darkness.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN:** Once again, sorry for the delay. Starbrigid and I have both been very busy with projects and the holiday season, as I'm sure many of you are. The good news is that chapter eleven is completely typed and chapter twelve is most of the way there, so you shouldn't have to wait a month for them. wince

Thank you, reviewers! You are really great and surprisingly patient.

**Chapter Ten**

Waking to the faint sound of his alarm radio, Hideaki yawned and stretched his limbs. He was lying on the floor of his living room, near the TV. His little table had been pushed against the wall to make more room for the boys on the floor. He sighed, not surprised to see the bedding beside him neatly folded and left there in a precise stack. There was no note and no Arima. He wasn't really worried about the other boy, but a faint ache of disappointment tightened his throat.

The remainder of the day passed quickly in a blur of practice entrance exams and when he went to meet the gang for lunch, Arima wasn't there.

"He had something to do," Yukino said when Hideaki asked. She fingered the edge of her neat jacket where it covered the uniform tie, looking distracted and unhappy. He wondered what Arima had told her or what she had sensed in her secretive boyfriend.

Tsubaki tapped her fingers on the table and looked directly across at Yukino's face. "Well, I kept my mouth shut and didn't pester him, like you said," she told the other girl. "So, you talked to him, right? Who was she? I'm dying to know."

"Just a neighbor," Yukino said, mustering a weak smile. "Someone he's known a while who came to see him."

Hideaki winced inwardly at her distress but kept his face smooth and interested. Rika coughed awkwardly and Tsubaki raised a skeptical eyebrow. "…And you believe that?"

Listlessly, Yukino shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I trust him, I really do. I guess I just wish he would trust me too."

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Tsubaki fumed, Aya frowned at her food, and Rika fingered her hair restlessly.

"So…" Tonami started, eyes darting nervously between the girls and Hideaki. "Uh, Asaba, did you by any chance tape the mystery theatre program that was on last night? Sakura really wants to see it."

Hideaki felt a wave of gratitude for the tall boy's clumsy attempt at normal conversation. He cocked his head. "Actually Takefumi, I stopped watching kids shows several years ago," he declared with false arrogance. "Maybe you should ask a middle schooler."

"It's not a kids show!" Tsubaki retorted, thumping her fist on the table. "It's a fast-paced, exciting thriller, you nitwit." She leaned forward to give him a look of calculated scorn. "Of course, probably all you ever watch is porn, so you wouldn't know."

"Sakura!" Tonami protested, blushing.

"Your jealousy is understandable," Hideaki concluded, folding his arms. "I'd be happy to loan you some porn, but I really don't think you're mature enough to see it."

Yukino's shoulders shook with laughter and Rika choked on a mouthful of orange juice.

"Asapin and Tsubaki watching porn together," Aya drawled. "That'll be the day."

Even Tonami had to snicker at that particular mental image.

-

The phone rang as Hideaki unlocked the door to his apartment. Jerking, the door open, he kicked off his shoes and skidded across the floor to where the cordless sat and plucked it out of its cradle.

It wasn't Arima. "I'm so sorry to bother you, Asaba," Arima's aunt said. "I was just wondering if my boy was there."

"No, not yet," Hideaki answered honestly, dropping his book bag on the table.

She said nothing for a moment. Then, "He stayed at your place last night to help you study, right?"

"Yes, he was here all night." Hideaki sensed the anxiety in her voice. He wanted to soothe her, help her, but his loyalties lay first with her adopted son. "In fact, I think he may come over again tonight to help me the test that's coming up."

"_She made me promise to meet her again."_ Arima was out on another date with his birth mother and he obviously didn't want anyone to know.

"I'll look after him, Arima-san," Hideaki told her.

"Thank you," she breathed. "That makes me feel better. He's a good boy but he's had such a difficult time and I know that being friends with you has helped him open up. You're the kind of outgoing influence he needs."

_If only you knew_, Hideaki thought somewhat guiltily, _what kind of influence I'd like to be_. He offered the usual goodbye pleasantries and hung up the phone.

-

The next day was clear and crisp, heralding the start of a cold winter. Hideaki walked to school in a fog of thoughts. A leafblower had come by and scattered the leaves from the sidewalks, but ghostly imprints of their dark shapes still lingered on the light pavement. Arima hadn't called him last night or stopped by the apartment.

At school, he was somewhat alarmed to hear that Arima hadn't attended his first classes. Finally, after two periods, the model student arrived. Hideaki watched him assure a trio of students that he had simply overslept that morning.

_Were you with her?_ Hideaki wondered. He could not form a solid image of the infamous mother in his mind. She must be very beautiful, he imagined, to have a son like Arima. He stepped into the mostly empty classroom where Arima sat, talking with some classmates. Arima's expression was open and calm as he listened to the other students prattle on about what he had missed in the early classes. A part of Hideaki admired Arima for the ease in which he wore the mask, slipping it on like a second skin. No traces showed of his fears or doubts, no hint of guilt at his lies.

_He doesn't wear that mask with me,_ Hideaki thought with an odd sense of comfort. Then he saw Yukino in the doorway, watching Arima with an expression he had never seen before, lips parted, eyes narrow with concentration and disbelief. _She sees it too_, he realized, with a jolt of fear and amazement. _She finally sees through it_.

Hideaki stiffened as her head turned toward him and her gaze met his, incredulous and questioning. He swallowed hard, anxiety and shame clawing at his throat. He stood and went to the door. Arima's eyes were on his back, burning his skin.

When he stepped into the hall, he attempted a wide grin, but her cool, accusing eyes shot it down.

"I need to talk to you, Asaba," she said.

Hideaki made a show of scratching his head and checking his watch. "Can it wait? I have to get going to class now."

"After class then. I'll meet you behind the baseball field." She gave him a quick, sharp look. "Don't stand me up, Asapin."

"Okay," Hideaki said with a complacent shrug. His mind teemed with questions as he walked away, debating how much he could reveal to her. Would it be the right thing to betray Arima to the one he loved?

Instead of attending class, he went to the gym where the girls' volleyball team was practicing. He observed them in action, watching as Tsubaki moved quickly to hit the ball, displaying the strength and confidence that had become her trademark. She heckled the girls on the other side of the net, challenging them to give her better serves than that. Rika stood on the sidelines, drinking a bottle of water as she watched the game.

Megumi, Hideaki's former middle school classmate, was on the opposite side of the net from Tsubaki, her face flushed with exertion. She managed to stop Tsubaki's serve, but the ball sailed upward into the net amid groans and cheers. The coach said something, but Hideaki was caught up in watching Megumi sigh and straighten. The girls next to her patted her on the back and one of them said something that made her giggle and cover her mouth. After a painful, heart-breaking experience, she had found her strength and a place to belong outside the crowd. Relieved, Hideaki smiled and left the gym, heading back to the west end stairs.

He climbed up the long path of steps to the open air of the roof, where Arima waited, crouched beside the railing. His hands gripped the metal bars so tightly that his knuckles stood out like white pebbles against the shiny pain. The mask was gone now and Hideaki could see the pain stretching his face tight with turmoil.

"It's all coming apart," he said without looking at Hideaki. "It's what I deserve, anyway. Karma coming back to kill me."

Hideaki saw the thin bones of Arima's fingers, the sickly color of his skin and bit his tongue. Arima looked like he might be violently sick at any moment, drawn and wounded deep in his flesh. Fighting down the first wave of panic, Hideaki knelt beside his friend and kept his face impassive. The tile was hard and cold against his kneecaps. The frigid air made his skin tingle; he hadn't brought a jacket and the weather was hardly forgiving.

"Maybe it's time to let go," he offered quietly.

Arima hissed scornfully at this suggestion. "Too late for that. I've been lying to them for too long, pretending to be better… Well, now they'll all see the monster I really am."

"You're not a monster," Hideaki said uselessly. Arima's sudden breakdown shocked and frightened him. He put an arm over Arima's back, holding onto his shoulders. His fingers were starting to numb in the cold air and he rubbed them gently into the muscle of other boy's tense shoulder.

"Don't touch me," Arima said, his voice oddly muffled. "Go away already." His hands slid from the bars to grip his knees and he made no move to push Hideaki away, as he usually did. His body shuddered beneath the other's arm and he lowered his head against his knees to hide his face. "It doesn't matter anyway. She's going away to college…we're all going away."

There was no mistaking the tremor in his voice and Hideaki felt the answering surge of sadness in himself like a jagged flood. He wrapped his other arm around Arima's body, shifting position so that he could embrace the other boy from behind, resting his face against the back of Arima's neck. The thin body beneath his shivered restlessly despite the warmth Hideaki felt radiating from it. Words twisted uselessly in Hideaki's mouth, too weak and ineffective to emerge.

_Nothing I can say will heal him_, he realized. _Nothing_ _I do will ever save him in the end._ He didn't want to believe it, wanted to stay by this boy forever as his safe shelter and only confidant, but Arima deserved more than this desperately suppressed longing. Hideaki clenched his burning eyes shut and breathed harshly into the rough fabric of Arima's jacket.

"_If you really love someone, you let them go,"_ he had told Arima that first summer, and the other boy had immediately assumed that he was suggesting a breakup with Yukino. Could anyone be so blind, oblivious to all the hints, the suggestive words, the lingering touches, the mindless obsession and sacrifice of dignity?

With his arms around Arima and his face buried in his friend's shaking back, Hideaki felt himself confronted with the razor-sharp edge of truth. No one could be that blind unless they wanted to be. Arima would never reciprocate his desire, would never treat him as more than the friend who was always there for some reason. Arima knew of Hideaki's feelings and he completely ignored them.

The air around them was so cold, he could hardly feel his body. All he could feel was Arima's firm presence against him. _I… I hate you_, he thought suddenly. _You're a heartless, manipulative bastard. You suck me up like a black hole and spit me out when I'm no use to you._ He gasped, inhaling the icy air. Acid burned behind his eyelids. His chest ached and expanded, filling with more pain than he had ever imagined it could hold.

Arima drew in another shuddering breath, his muscles slackening under Hideaki's embrace. A quick, chill wind picked up, sweeping through Hideaki's clothing, freezing him to the bone. Arima's body in his arms was a warm, solid weight anchoring him to the world even as the dark boy's mind crumbled. He shielded Arima from the wind without even thinking about it, as one cups a flower bud in shivering hands to protect it from the frost that has already covered it.

-

Yukino stood with her back to the chain link fence, a small steady figure against the expanse of metal rings. Her school uniform looked precise and neat from the smooth blazer to the slightly scuffed black shoes. Her legs were pressed together beneath her pleated skirt to preserve warmth.

"I thought you might not come," she said softly.

Hideaki mustered a smile. He sat leisurely on the long grass beside her feet, looking out toward the river. "So, what did you want to talk about, Yukinon?"

She turned and moved to block his line of sight. The wind tossed her short hair against her face but she looked into his eyes with piercing directness. "I think Soichiro may be lying to me," she said. "I'm not sure how long he's been doing it."

Tilting his head toward her face, he gave her an innocent look. "And why are you asking me about it? Isn't he the one you're dating?"

She didn't back down and continued to watch him, skirt shifting against her thighs in the breeze. "You know Arima better than anyone, maybe even better than me. I think you see through him. I think he might tell you things."

Hideaki's fingers twisted in the grass to the gritty, sandy soil beneath. The rough granules stuck under his fingernails. "If you're asking me about something like this don't you already know the answer?"

"Tell me the truth, Asaba" she said forcefully, and despite the harshness of the command, there was a break in her voice, a roughness that betrayed emotion.

He tilted his head back to look more directly into her eyes, challenging. "Okay. Yeah, that's the truth. He not telling you everything, not giving away how he really feels, hiding stuff from you." His mouth was strangely, surprisingly cruel. "But you already knew that, I'm sure."

All the same, the shock in her eyes surprised him. She stared at him, suddenly pained and betrayed, as if he had stabbed Arima in the back in front of her eyes.

"That's… that's horrible," she declared brokenly, accusation sharp. "I can't believe that he would… deceive me like that."

Unexpectedly, Hideaki felt his sympathy turn to anger. Arima had hidden himself for her sake, kept up the façade solely to be the kind of person he thought she would want.

"Horrible?" he repeated coolly. "You have no idea why he's been keeping things from you. You can't even comprehend what he's been through." The wind stung the back of his neck. "If you're going to get judgmental and turn into some self-pitying castoff, I guess I was completely wrong about you."

A lesser girl would have broken into tears or leapt to defend herself but Yukino only continued to watch him, her initial alarm settling back into grave contemplation. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. A strand of hair stuck to the corner of her mouth. Her hands were trembling slightly while the rest of her body was solid as a rock.

Hideaki looked down at his knees with a false smile. "Yeah, a little," he admitted.

Her face flushed then and she stepped closer so that he was staring down at his face, her shaking hands clenched into fists. "Why are you like this, Asaba?" she demanded, voice harsh with anguish. "I don't even know who you are any more. You and Arima both… you're like strangers all of a sudden!"

She left him then, running back towards the school on the verge of tears, but with a purpose in mind. _Going to face Arima?_ Hideaki wondered. He lay back on the grass with a sigh. The confrontation would have had to come in time, he knew this now and he had resolved to stop shielding his friend. If Arima found out how he had spoken to Yukino, the dark-haired boy would doubtlessly react with extreme anger. Yukino existed as the sole object of his deep and painful obsession and he would do anything to protect her. Now it was up to Yukino to grasp the power and danger of this passion and help Arima climb out of the pit he had dug for himself.

"Save your Prince Charming, Yukinon," Hideaki said to no one, lying on the dry grass beside the chain-link fence behind the empty, dusty baseball field.

He covered his face with one arm, listening to an old soda can rattle against the fence, driven by the wind. _That's me_, he thought. _Empty and discarded_. He chuckled, then, at the mediocre poetry his own self-pity made.

-

Hideaki had missed a ridiculous amount of class time that day, but he managed to attend his final session. He found it difficult, though, to concentrate on the material being taught with the drama doubtlessly unfolding elsewhere in the school.

When the bell rang and he raced out of the room, he saw Tsubaki, Aya, and Rika waiting for him in the hall with solemn expressions. "We need to talk to you, Asaba," Aya said briskly. Tsubaki glared at him tightly and Rika looked down at her feet with reddened eyes.

"I've been doing a lot of that today," Hideaki quipped, resignation settling in.

They led him to an empty room and he sat at a desk, crossing his legs and putting on an attentive face.

"We need to know what's happening with Arima and Miyazawa," Tsubaki said firmly. He's gone missing this afternoon and she won't tell us anything about why she's so upset."

"And she didn't want to talk to you," Rika added, confusion and concern clear in her face. "She said that she doesn't recognize you anymore." Her lips trembled. "I just don't understand."

Hideaki watched them all silently, marveling at the degree his life had changed in such a short time. Just yesterday he had been eating and joking with these girls. The solid world he had built was collapsing around him at rapid speed.

"I understand," Tsubaki growled. "This loser hurt Yukinon somehow and now he's sitting here, cool as a cucumber, ignoring us completely."

"No," Rika pleaded. Her eyes begged Hideaki to deny it.

"What's going on?" Aya asked again, frustrated by his silence.

"It's between Arima and Miyazawa," Hideaki said evenly. "It's none of my business and it's none of yours. It's their relationship and their job to work out its problems."

Perhaps it was jealousy or an attachment to Arima that made him so defensive. Perhaps he really believed that only Arima and Yukino could fix the divide between them. Either way, he had effectively shut the other girls out.

Aya shook her head sadly. Tsubaki stared at him angrily, her scorn seeping into her voice. "She was right about you being a stranger. Yukinon is our friend and if you won't help her, we'll figure it out ourselves."

She marched out of the room and the other two followed her silently, turning their backs on the orange-haired boy at the desk.

-

It was a long Friday night for Hideaki. He stayed up late watching television after another call from Arima's aunt, asking about the whereabouts of her only child. The late shows seemed to blend into each other as the night wore on. He waited for the knock at the door, the ring of the telephone but Arima never showed. Finally, he turned off the screen and fell asleep on the sofa within reach of the door. Curled against the cushions, he felt hollow and afraid. Arima life was falling apart and Hideaki could barely keep the pieces of his own world together.

The ring of the doorbell woke him early in the morning. He sat up sleepily, rubbing at his gritty eyes with one hand. His right cheek felt rough and red with imprinted pattern of the sofa's fabric. One arm tingled numbly where he had lain on it and cut off the circulation.

Clumsily, he stumbled to the door, only pausing to run a hand through his messy hair before opening it. He had expected Arima, Yukino, or one of the gang armed with anger of apologies but the two small neighbor girls stood there, looking at him shyly.

"Have you seen our kitty?" asked the older one. She wore a little cranberry-red coat and a grayish knitted hat that was beginning to unravel. Her younger sister hid in her shadow, fingering the yellow rabbit on her jacket.

"Uh, no," Hideaki admitted and winced at the crestfallen expressions on their round faces. "But I'd be happy to help you look."

This declaration cheered them immensely. The older sister beamed at him while the younger squeaked happily and did a little jump of excitement. He grabbed his coat and led them around the apartment complex, questioning sleepy neighbors and searching empty alleys.

The day grew warmer, the sun shone brightly, and Hideaki gained the duty of carrying discarded coats and hats. After a lengthy search, they finally found Mika-Mika, the fat gray tabby, foraging in an overturned garbage can a few blocks away. Hideaki escorted the little troop back to their apartment before returning to his own, feeling lighter with the sun on his back and his key warm in his hand.

He had just turned the corner toward the metal stairs when he saw Arima standing there in the courtyard, looking for all the world like a lost, frightened child. The relief on his face when he saw Hideaki cut like a blade of light through Hideaki's heart.

"Hey," Hideaki said awkwardly. He should have felt worried and afraid in this kind of situation, but a surge of selfish elation overwhelmed him. He touched Arima's clammy face with one hand and fought back the triumph in his body. "Are you okay?"

Arima bent to press his face against Hideaki's shoulder, breathing deeply and Hideaki forgot all his anger from the day before. It didn't matter if Arima only used him. Arima _needed_ to use him and that was what really meant something. In his time of desperation, he had come to Hideaki alone. The taller boy touched Arima's back cautiously, uncertain of how to respond to this sudden display of… affection? Arima's hair smelled of his usual plain shampoo and his body was solid against his friend's. Hideaki moved his hand up to Arima's neck and felt the sweat there, the fever of fear under the skin.

"I'm thirsty," Arima said faintly.

Quickly, Hideaki turned, grasping Arima's arm and leading him up the stairs and into the apartment. They sat on the floor of the living room as Arima drank a tall glass of water. Hideaki watched the movement of his throat as Arima swallowed, the way he closed his eyes, lashes falling against his pale skin. Hideaki thought of drawing him like that, capturing the simple beauty of a boy drinking water.

Arima brushed his fingers over his lips, set the glass down on the carpet, and began to speak in an even voice, eyes latched on Hideaki's, wide with a plea for understanding. He spoke at length of the things he remembered now: the arc of his mother's fast, hard hands and feet; the way her knuckles left round bruises on his face like dark petals; the curve of her full red lips as she ate or spoke; the liquid slide of her disgust; the vitriolic burn of her anger; the filth on the floor; the horror of looking into a mirror at a dark, dirty little monster; the emptiness in his body as he reached up, up for nothing, nothing at all.

As Arima spoke, he shaped these images with the movement of his mouth and faint flickers of emotion in his eyes, as he recounted horror after horror with the cool face of an angel. "They found me half-dead in the snow outside out apartment, starved, feverish, and dehydrated. I kept hoping she would come back. I don't know why."

"Why not?" Hideaki offered, feeling weak and sick from these sudden revelations. "She was all you had. Of course you loved her."

"No love now," Arima said bitterly. "Love is about needing someone and she was all I had but she never needed me. She would have been glad to get rid of me, I think."

_Is that what love is about_? Hideaki wondered, feeling a sharp, tightening circle under his ribs. _Don't you need me, Arima? Or is it just the other way around?_

"She's just using me," Arima said disgustedly. "She's ruining my life because hers is so fucked up." He raised his hands to cover his face in a sudden gesture of agony. His voice shook. "My parents know about it now. They know I've been keeping things from them." His fingers pressed deep into his skin. "It's all going to hell, Asaba. I don't know what to do. How can I keep this from her?"

Arima reached across the short distance between them and grasped Hideaki's shirt like a frightened child. His head dropped to rest on the space between Hideaki's neck and shoulder, finding a safe hollow there. Hideaki felt tears against the skin of his neck and time seemed to stop. The burning in Hideaki's body raged against his indecision, his conflicting desires and needs. He bit his tongue and clenched the useless hands the wanted only to smooth down the slope of Arima's back, to run fingers through dark hair. He would have only needed to shift a little, to support Arima's head with one hand and kiss those wet eyes, that wavering mouth, or he could have simply touched Arima soothingly, comforting his friend as he always had.

In the back of his mind, though, he knew it would all be in vain. _You aren't the one_, he told himself. _You can't fix him_. His tongue felt thick and worthless in his mouth. He forced himself to speak.

"There's something I need to tell you, Soichiro." Arima turned his head slightly. "Yukino asked me yesterday if you were lying to her… and I said yes."

Arima jerked back so quickly that Hideaki barely felt the movement before he was looking into Arima's panicked, tear-streaked face.

"You told her what?" His dark eyes blazed, full of terror and disbelief.

Hideaki steeled himself, determined not to give into the other boy. "I told her what you couldn't— the truth," he declared steadily.

Arima's fist struck the side of his face like a cobra lunging for the kill. Hideaki fell back from the blow and blinked rapidly, reaching up to the bruising skin of his cheek. He pulled himself up again to stare Arima in the face. "What? You want me to lie to her too?" he asked painfully. "You know she would have found out eventually because you're just too emotionally unstable to keep this up. Didn't I warn you? Your cheap house of pretending is falling apart."

A flash of rage in the other boy's eyes was all the warning he had. He didn't dodge the second blow. The impact of Arima's bony knuckles force his bottom lip against his teeth. The coppery taste of blood blossomed on his tongue. Arima stood without giving him a second glance and walked toward the door. Hideaki pushed himself up again and forced his mouth to speak, despite the sting of his cut lip.

"Hit me all you want," he hissed, "but it won't change anything. She knows. She's suspected all along, Soichiro, because she knows you, she watches you. That's what he means to be loved by someone." He coughed and felt a trickle of blood run out of his mouth.

Arima was at the door already. He paused with his hand on the knob. "As if you would know," he said derisively.

Hideaki felt his eyes burn with desperation and he blinked hard, wiping the blood from his lips. The familiar void had opened in his chest, but now it felt enormous, a black, gaping hole. Arima turned the knob of the door.

"Don't you fucking run away," Hideaki rasped, voice slurred. Arima stopped again, his back straight and stiff. Hideaki knew in his gut that there was nowhere else for the isolated boy to go but down. His fear for the desperation in Arima overwhelmed his own pain. If Arima left now, Hideaki might never see his friend again.

He swallowed a mouthful of blood and braced himself. "You're up against a wall, Soichiro. Be a man for once and face up to it. I may not know what it means to be loved, but you do. What about your mom and dad? What about Yukino?" _What about me?_ "They haven't given up on you. You can't keep pushing them away or leave them behind."

Arima turned slowly and looked down at the floor. His hands were still clenched at his sides, but his face showed a raging battle of conflicting fear and guilt. Finally, he met Hideaki's eyes, wincing with sudden shame as he saw the blood. "I'm sorry, Asaba. I'll get something for that."

"It's okay," Hideaki replied, feeling awkward with relief. His vision blurred with a slight dizziness as he watched Arima go to the kitchen for a washcloth and ice. It took him a moment before he could stand without feeling too ill or disoriented. He rinsed the blood out of his mouth in the kitchen and held the ice against his face.

"You should call your parents," he told Arima. "They're really worried about you."

Arima picked up the phone and dialed a number. The skin of Hideaki's face grew numb quickly as he watched his friend speak, but there was nothing he could do for the searing pain in his chest except close it up and try to forget about it. He wondered how much longer he could keep this up, keep hiding and tearing inwardly. Someday it would go away. Someday he would get over this, like Megumi, and find his place of acceptance.


	11. Chapter 11

**AN:** My first free day since Christmas! Okay, so my meager free time has been focused on finishing chapter twelve. This chapter ends on a cliffhanger and I don't want you to have to wait forever for it to be resolved.

**Chapter Eleven**

Arima hung up the phone and looked at his friend cautiously. "Is it okay if I stay here tonight?"

"Yeah, sure," Hideaki replied cheerfully. "I'll make your favorite ramen and we'll watch people humiliate themselves on daytime reality shows."

Arima nodded absently and sat on the couch, pulling his feet up on the cushions and wrapping his arms around his knees. The expression on Arima's face brought Hideaki back to his revelations of abuse by his birth mother. Suddenly, all of Arima's cold, defensive behavior made sense, the way he pulled away from people and coiled his emotions and desires up inside himself to avoid getting hurt. Hideaki understood this painful withdrawal and felt the other boy's loneliness like a hovering dark cloud.

"Arima," he began. The doorbell rang distractingly, cutting off his words. "Um, I'll be back in a minute." Arima didn't look up.

Hideaki opened the door to Yukino's worried face. "Hi, Asaba…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes narrowed. "What happened to your face?"

"Oh." He touched the bruising on his cheek and chin absently. "Uh, there was this misunderstanding at a club… Let's just say that I don't need a girlfriend with such a strong right hook, y'know?" He grinned cheesily, but she didn't smile back. "Well, anyway, what can I do for you this lovely morning?"

"I'm looking for Arima," she said, eyes piercing through his mask. "No one seems to know where he is and I thought he might have come here." She watched Hideaki's face with a knowing gaze. "He's here, isn't he?"

Hideaki paused, frozen with indecision. Arima needed to reconcile with Yukino, but not now, not in this black mood. He rubbed the doorknob with his thumb, still blocking the entrance. "I actually just got home…" he started to say. Yukino's eyes were looking behind him.

"Those are Arima's shoes." She pointed calmly to the second pair on the floor of the _genkan_. Her eyes confronted him with a look of challenge and a pained betrayal. "Why are you lying to me, Asaba?

When he didn't reply immediately, she started to push past him into the apartment but Hideaki stopped her with his arm, trying to keep her back. Yukino's body was small but fierce and she squirmed against his grip like an animal bent on survival.

"Arima!" she cried. "I really need to talk to you. I swear I listen to whatever you say. Just please talk to me!" Her voice cracked with desperation and Arima appeared in the doorway to the living room, watching her with a cold, blank expression. "Arima, please!"

Hideaki released her and she took a few steps toward her lover but Arima closed the distance between the two of them rapidly. He put both hands firmly on her shoulders and pushed her yielding, confused body past Hideaki, out the doorway. "I don't want to see you right now," he said coolly, and shut the door in her face.

The way Yukino looked before the door shut would linger in Hideaki's mind forever, the image of her face white and stricken with shock and devastation. It was an expression of pure terror at the sudden blatant rejection. A selfish part of Hideaki felt somewhat justified that she now had a taste of what he had to go through every day. Another part of him recognized that he loved Yukino like a sister and he knew the pain she felt as intimately as his own. Cold misery settled in his stomach like a lead weight.

He watched Arima in silence as the other boy turned and stalked back to the main room, scowling darkly. Hideaki went to the kitchen and swallowed an aspirin. He looked at the discarded ice cubes melting in the sink. "Are you hungry?" he asked Arima's brooding figure on the sofa.

"No," was the quiet reply.

Hideaki opened the fridge. "Do you want a soda?"

"Okay." Arima had to uncurl his body to drink the sweet beverage that his friend brought him. He slouched down into the sofa, holding the cold can between his fingertips with his gaze far away.

"Well, I didn't get any breakfast, so I'm making some food," Hideaki declared, returning to the kitchen. He turned on the little radio on the shelf and set himself to the task of washing rice. The brownish flakes of husks swirled on the surface of the water. The radio played an upbeat hip-hop song and he danced a little as he drained out the water and set the rice on the stove. He turned his head and saw that Arima was watching him covertly, his pale face half-turned.

"Are you sure you don't want some breakfast?"

Arima looked back at his soda can and his hair fell over his eyes. "Maybe a little."

Hideaki went to the fridge and grabbed some eggs for omelets. Arima had always liked his sweet omelets, though he had never admitted it. By the time Hideaki had finished the first omelet the rice was nearly done. As he stirred it, little puffs of warm steam rose out of its moist, white depths.

When he looked back to the sofa, Arima was leaning on the armrest, halfway lying on it, tracing the pattern of the fabric with his index finger. Hideaki picked up his sketchbook from where it had fallen between the armchair and the table. He sat on the floor before Arima and opened it to a blank page. Arima scowled at the hand holding the pencil.

"What are you doing?"

Hideaki looked down at the milky blankness of his paper. "I'm drawing you, of course."

"No." Arima started to curl up defensively, covering his face with one hand. When he realized the futility of this gesture, he slid of the sofa quickly and bent to knock the pencil from where it had come to rest harmlessly on the paper. "Don't do that," he ordered.

It was only a glancing hit that didn't hurt Hideaki's hand at all, but his pencil left a dark, erratic line on the formerly pristine page.

"You never let me draw you," he complained. "Why?"

Arima knelt beside him and crossed his arms, trying to cover his vulnerability with anger. "I don't like it." He bit his lip and glared unhappily. "It's weird. Like you're looking inside me. I hate it."

Hideaki set down his pad, smiling crookedly. "I think maybe you're a little paranoid," he said. He stood up then and went to take the food off the stove.

-

That night seemed to go on forever. Arima tossed and turned on the floor of the living room, sighing brokenly in his sleep. Lying beside him, Hideaki was afraid to touch him, knowing the weakness in his own body and the surety of Arima's icy rejection.

He got up and paced about the apartment, pressing his face against the cool window pane. Opening the door, he went out on the little iron landing above the stairs. The moon hung in the sky like a lop-sided smile in the darkness. A cat cried in the distance. The air was too cold to stay out long and Hideaki's body refused any tragically romantic thoughts of freezing to death outside his own apartment. He returned to Arima's side and wrapped himself in the warm comfort of the blankets to find a few hours of dreamless sleep.

-

Hideaki yawned loudly in class and tapped his pen noisily against the top of his desk. The girl next to him looked up with a brief flash of annoyance that melted away into surprise when she saw who he was. Hideaki ignored her, along with all the other attention he received for his uncharacteristic behavior, subdued manner and the bruising on his face. He had woken once again to find Arima gone once again with no note or explanation.

_Fine_, he thought. _Fine for you to use me as your crash pad, your little floor mat hideout whenever you want, you ungrateful little kid._ He didn't really mean any of it but repeating it to himself made him feel better, less useless and pathetic somehow.

When he saw Arima after class coming down the stairs from the science room all bitter thoughts fled his mind. "Hey," he called, catching the other boy's attention. "You took off early, huh?"

Arima nodded pleasantly. He looked clean and nice, the model student once more with his gracious face firmly in place. "I had to stop by my house to get my uniform and books and stuff before classes started."

"Oh yeah," Hideaki replied, feeling stupid and silly for the initial mental images he'd formed of Arima jumping off a bridge or running into the path of a train.

Arima looked past his shoulder and his facial expression froze into a perfect smile, eyes closed and head tilted with just the right amount of polite attention.

"Arima," Yukino's voice said behind Hideaki. The orange-haired boy backed away quickly, letting her approach her boyfriend.

"Good morning," Arima said lightly, barely looking at her serious face. "I'm so sorry about yesterday. You must have been looking all over for me but I just wasn't feeling well." He turned his head away from her to glance out at the high window. "Maybe it's the weather."

Hideaki swallowed hard. Students walked past them on their way to classes and activities, talking loudly. Yukino stared at Arima for a moment without speaking and her cautious, imploring expression turned to bitterness. "You can stop it already," she said heavily. "You don't have to keep pretending."

"What are you talking about?" Arima asked, a hint of forced mirth in his voice. His eyes had narrowed to slits above his broad smile.

Yukino drew in a harsh breath, her face flushed and frightened. "I think I need to apologize to you. I must have hurt you without meaning it. I deserted you and didn't even realize it. I'm sorry."

"Deserted me?" Arima's laugh was brittle. "When?"

"After the festival two years ago." Yukino looked at her skirt. "When you told me my rank would drop if I got too busy… and I said it was okay, you could have the top spot because it didn't matter to me." She exhaled a shuddering chuckle. "And I walked away." Her voice sounded high and incredulous, as though she couldn't believe her own actions.

Hideaki watched Arima's face undergo a familiar transformation from tightly controlled pleasantness to cold darkness. "I have to go," he said in a low voice, pushing past her to walk away. Yukino turned and stared after him, her face white with disbelief and fear.

"_I have to go."_ How many times had Hideaki heard those aloof words to brush him aside so casually? But this was the first time Yukino had seen the abrupt change, the dropping of the mask and the only the second time she had experienced such a chilling rebuff. She didn't even seem to know Hideaki was there until he touched her back.

"Follow him," he said softly in her ear. "Don't give up, Yukinon."

Her features hardened and she turned to give him a resolute look. "I wasn't planning on it," she said firmly.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked briskly down the hall after her quarry and the resolve in her step, the straight line of her gaze encouraged Hideaki immensely. Yukino had a clear purpose and when she was in this mode, nothing could stop her.

He watched from a distance as she caught up to Arima's departing figure and pulled him into an empty room, shutting the door behind them. Hideaki smirked at the image. Yukino got what she wanted. He went down the hall and stood in front of the door to make sure no one disturbed the two of them.

A trio of class F girls passed by, and he gave them a wide smile in return for their waving and giggling. He managed a friendly nod for Tonami when the taller boy walked by with some other members of the basketball club. Tonami looked as though he didn't know whether to return the gesture or not, caught between guilt towards Hideaki and loyalty to Tsubaki. He managed to meet Hideaki's eyes and duck his head in acknowledgement before he moved on.

"You know that guy?" Hideaki heard one of the other boys ask. Tonami said something in return but by then he was too far away for Hideaki to hear. Harsh laughter rose in Hideaki's ears and for a moment he couldn't think where it came from, this hysterical, sobbing noise, until he realized the voice echoed through the door behind him.

"Arima?" he called without response. He knocked lightly on the door and then pounded on the hard surface, panic cresting as the laughter rose higher and louder, raking at his ears like claws. "Arima, I know you're in there. Let me in."

Yukino opened the door and he fell forward, stumbling into the room. Arima stood with his head thrown back, laughing manically, uncontrollably, blind terror in his eyes. Hideaki reacted without thinking, catching Arima's shoulders and shaking hard so that the dark head snapped backwards. Wide black eyes stared at him without recognition and the laughter stopped but Arima continued to suck in sobbing breaths, heart racing to explosion. Desperate, Hideaki hit him with an open-handed blow to the side of his face and the hysterical actions ended abruptly. Arima blinked at him twice and dropped his head, breathing slowing.

"Thank you, Asaba," he said softly.

Yukino inhaled deeply and wrapped her arms around herself. Hideaki brushed the hair from Arima's eyes with his fingertips. "You're tired," he said, feeling suddenly bone-weary himself. "I'll walk you home."

Slowly, Arima shook his head. "I'll be fine," he said firmly. "Take Miyazawa home if you want to help me."

Hideaki felt helpless. He dropped his hands. "Okay," he replied, voice calm. "Call me if you need anything."

Yukino followed him out of the room without a word. She paused once to give Arima a sad, plaintive look and she didn't say anything until they were out of the school and on the street.

"So much for being a model student," she murmured bitterly. He wasn't sure who she was referring to. "Skipping classes again. I just wanted to be with him."

Hideaki stopped walking and looked at the small, conflicted young woman watching the cement beneath her feet. "You want to go back to class?" he asked.

"No. It's too late for that." Ginko leaves fell around them. One caught in the straps of her satchel. She lifted her head and looked him over slowly, lips parted. "Who are you, Asaba?"

"Eh?" He pretended not to understand.

"I thought I knew Arima and I thought I knew you, but you've both been lying to me and everyone else all this time." Her shoulders slumped beneath the neatly pressed jacket with its pale blue tie. He was transfixed by the brilliant whiteness of her pressed collar.

"I just want to go back to that time," she admitted with dejection. "I just want to feel like there are no secrets, that we are all so close and we know each other like no one else."

He snorted softly in amusement.

"You're going to tell me people aren't that simple," she said wryly. "Aren't you, Asaba?"

He slipped his hands into his pockets and started to walk again, anticipating that she would follow beside him. She did.

"I'm going to tell you that Arima isn't that simple," he said, feeling as though he was lifting something heavy from his shoulders and giving it—at least part of it—to her. "I'm going to tell you that when Arima was a kid his birth mother neglected and abused him. She would hurt him and leave him alone for days without caring at all. It's a miracle that he didn't die, that he found a good home eventually with his aunt and uncle. But he still carries a lot of bad stuff from that time, a lot of scars, a lot of memories that he pushed way and blocked out of his mind." Yukino's mouth dropped open. "Then his mom saw him on TV that day when he was on the show. Since then she's been hounding him, bringing back all the bad stuff, and he's had a tough time dealing with it."

Yukino stared at the rough trunks of the ginko trees growing by the sidewalk, her eyes wide with emotion. Her short hair swung against her face with each step. "Why… why does he tell you all this and not me?"

Hideaki bit the inside of his cheek painfully. A noisy bus rumbled past them, leaving an acrid smell in the air. He didn't know what to tell her. _Because I'm expendable. He can risk spilling his guts and losing me, but he wouldn't have dared to destroy his precious ties with you._

Yukino's shoes scuffed against the pavement as she stopped. "Asaba?" A hint of tears choked her voice.

Facing her, Hideaki paused, considering the best words to speak. "Well, I like to think of it like this: some people are like the moon and are great at reflecting and understanding others' emotions but they can't make any light of their own. Me and Arima are like that." He gestured to her. "You, on the other hand, are a sun person. You don't need someone else to be happy or to give you happiness; you make it yourself. I can understand and empathize with Arima but I can't heal him. Only you can do that."

Yukino looked out at the moving traffic her head still bowed. "I don't know what to say to him," she admitted. "I don't know how to make him listen."

"You know," he told her. "He just wants to be loved, but he's so scared of it, he doesn't really understand how it works." He couldn't believe how straight and calm his face was as he spoke to her. "He loved his mom so much and look what she did to him. Arima is terrified that you'll hate him, that he'll hurt you. He'll try to push you away but you can't let him. You can't leave him alone."

Yukino turned to him with a distant look in her eyes. Her fingers curled tightly around the edges of her long sleeves. She looked solemn, set in understanding. "I did that once and I'm never making that mistake again. From now on, I'll support him as much as I can."

Face set with the old fire of determination she walked past him, down the sidewalk on her own and he watched her go. Ginko leaves fluttered behind her like tiny fans in the wind.

-

Spread across the smooth surface of his bed, Hideaki lay on his back in his boxer shorts, arms stretched out above his head. He breathed deeply and lifted each hand to trace the inside of his arms, following a line from his sternum to the hollows of his elbows, the heavy veins of his wrists, and the points of his fingers. He ran his fingertips down an invisible path from the underside of his chin, over the lump of his Adam's apple, the bridge of his ribcage, and the soft skin of his stomach, to his groin. On the windowsill, the radio played soft classical music.

He felt lost, invisible, and uncertain of his own existence. He was afraid of waking up and being nothing more than a cloud of consciousness hovering over his friends, voiceless and bodiless, always aching with regrets and unspoken words. If he disappeared or became a ghost, would anyone know? Would anyone cry? Maybe his mother. Maybe Yukino and Rika and some of the other girls. Everyone else would go on. Arima would go on, a little more alone, but would he notice?

Without the burden of Arima's secrets on his shoulders, on his soul, he felt insubstantial and disposable. Yukino carried that weight now and he had no place or purpose in her boyfriend's life. Once he had thought there was no one worth this kind of sacrifice. He had vowed never to give up on his own happiness to please someone else.

He smelled the skin of his palms, smelled sweat and traces of food, salty rice crackers and miso soup. He wondered if he kissed someone, would they taste the miso in his mouth?

"_As if you would know,"_ Arima had said.

A blues piano song started playing on the radio. It started off soft and jazzy before getting faster and more discordant, writhing with a raw energy. Hideaki shivered, feeling the notes were speaking to the core of his own anguish, urging him to hurt more. It frightened him and he turned off the radio quickly, returning the room to silence.

-

Somehow, Hideaki made it through another day of mind-numbing classes with instructors desperate to shove everything he might possibly need for a college entrance exam into his brain. At home again, he kicked off his shoes in the _genkan_ and went to slump on the sofa, intent on crowding the oppressive sea of knowledge out of his head with a long dose of mindless television. He fell asleep during the second game show and woke much later to the sound of the phone ringing a jarring tune. Darkness covered the room and he tripped over the low table on his way to the phone, banging a knee on its hard surface. Rubbing the injured area, he picked up the receiver and uttered a breathless greeting.

"Ah…Asaba." Arima's voice trailed off in a shaky hiccup of laughter.

"Soichiro," Hideaki said, suddenly wide awake. "What's wrong?"

Silence hummed on the other end. Finally Arima spoke in a slow, uneven voice. "I remembered more stuff today. In class I freaked out because I thought I was bleeding all over my desk. It was a hallucination." He chuckled eerily. "She kicked me so much that I coughed up blood all over the floor…she stabbed me with scissors too, when I stained her dress. It really hurt. She was so beautiful."

Hideaki couldn't even comprehend what to say, what to tell him. Arima's pain was so far beyond him, so far past his ability to cure. "Soichiro," he breathed, clenching his teeth. "Soichiro…"

"But I… I hurt people even worse," Arima said, voice grating. "I hurt people without even touching them."

"It's not the same," Hideaki told him. "Don't think that."

Arima didn't seem to hear him. "I wanted to hurt Miyazawa today," he said. "When she tried to talk to me I pushed her down… almost raped her."

"No," Hideaki said, voice breaking. _If you ever loved him, Yukino..._ he thought despairingly.

"She didn't want it," Arima continued, short sobs punctuating his words. "I held her down on the floor. I tore her shirt open. I wanted to possess her, keep her all to myself… destroy her if I had to."

"You love her," Hideaki insisted feebly, willing everything to make sense.

"That isn't love," Arima declared harshly. "If I loved her I would stay away from her, never come near her ever again."

Hideaki glared at the glow of the television in the dark room, the painted faces of the actors on the screen. He felt a sudden anger rising in his throat. "Don't give me that self-sacrificing superhero bullshit," he growled. "I got enough of that from my parents and I can tell you for a fact that it only works in the movies."

"Then what the hell do you want me to do?" Arima demanded. "I've opened this box of poison and I can't close it. I can't forget."

"And I can't close it either," Hideaki said heavily, dropping words like stones. "I can't fix this. Yukino is the only one. She's the one you should have called, not me." His voice seemed suddenly loud and cold in his own ears. It echoed in the silence. On the television, someone screamed.

"I can't go to her," Arima said at last, his voice shaking. "It's over. Everything's over."

"You still feel something for her," Hideaki declared. "Give her another chance." The phone was slippery in his sweaty hand and the mouthpiece moist from his breath. "If she runs… fine. But I'd give this girl more credit than that. It isn't— It can't be easy to give up on someone like you."

Arima laughed darkly at his words. "Only an idiot would still even be talking to me at this point."

Hideaki smiled so tightly that it hurt. "Well, that's your favorite nickname for me, so I guess it must fit." He felt a smooth curve of relief in his mind. "It's okay."

Silence filled the other end for a long moment. "You always say stuff like that," Arima muttered, a sharp edge in his words. "You let me say anything, make fun of yourself… for what?"

Nervously, Hideaki ran his tongue over his dry lips. He really needed a drink. "What do you mean?" He pushed laughter into his voice.

"I'm talking about you playing with me, pretending everything's okay, like someday I'll just calm down and get over this." The derision in his voice burned Hideaki. "Talking shit about yourself to make me feel better. I get it now. You still think you can pat my ego and distract me from anything. You still want to use me, don't you?"

On the television a woman threw her sparkling wine glass at a window and it shattered, trailing lines of red. He knew Arima's words held truth and he had nothing to say in reply, no comfort, no love. "I don't know..."

"Stop patronizing me, Asaba," Arima hissed. "You're the same as everyone else."

There was the clattering sound of a phone shaking against its cradle and the line went dead. Hideaki was frozen, watching the advertisement for stain remover that flashed on the screen in garish colors. He hung up the phone and dialed Arima's number, a sudden terror taking over. The phone rang several times without answer.

In his chest, he could feel the beating of his heart doing triple time the rhythm of the empty rings. Swearing, he slammed the phone down and ran damp fingers through his hair, pressing them into his scalp, pulling his skin tighter over his face.

"_It's over. Everything's over,"_ Arima had said.

Hideaki grabbed his jacket and keys, pulled on his shoes and ran for the door.


	12. Chapter 12

**AN:** One more chapter after this! And it's already written! Professors and supervisors have combined forces to kill me slowly, so I'm glad to finally finish this. Sorry to make you wait, but most of you knew what was going to happen anyway, right?

**Chapter 12**

Arima's mother answered the door when Hideaki knocked. She was wearing a long, brown skirt and a heavy coat. Her hair was tied back in the usual tight bun and an expression of surprise came to her face when she saw him.

"Asaba-kun! Good evening."

Hideaki flashed her his instant-charm smile. "So sorry to bother you, Arima-san. Soichiro invited me over tonight and I completely forgot about it."

She looked at his face for a moment and beckoned him in. "Come inside. Souji and I just got home from a dinner, but I think that Soichiro has been up in his room studying. I'm sure he'd be glad for some company."

He slipped off his shoes and followed her through the house. Her husband crouched before the stone hearth, reaching to light the Western-style gas fireplace. Flames shot up quickly and he closed the glass doors. He looked up to see them. "Oh, it's Asaba," he exclaimed. Many tiny smiling wrinkles gathered at the corners of his gentle eyes. "What happened to your face, young man?"

"Tripped over my own feet in gym," Hideaki lied smoothly. "You should have seen the guy I landed on!"

The older man chuckled companionably. "Go upstairs and cheer up Soichiro for me. He's been a little down lately. Seeing a friend is what he needs."

Hideaki climbed the long flight of stairs to the hallway on the second floor, feet sinking into the thick carpet. Arima's room was near the end of the hall, above the kitchen. He knocked on the polished black door and waited for an answer. The sound of running water came to him through the wood and he twisted the stiff knob uselessly.

"Soichiro," he called. "It's me." No reply. Anxiety twisted his guts. "Open the door, Soichiro, or I'll call your parents up and tell them everything."

The water stopped running and after a moment, the door opened a crack.

"What do you want?" Arima said. His voice sounded drained and hollow.

Not bothering to answer, Hideaki pushed the door open all the way, forcing Arima to step back. The dark-haired boy wore a loose white dress shirt and black slacks. Perspiration glistened on his face. He was clutching his left hand in his right, holding it against his stomach. His shirtsleeves were stained red.

Hideaki felt a cold sweat break out all over his body. He tried to move his mouth.

"Get out of my room," Arima said roughly. He turned and went back to the small bathroom connected to his room, leaving Hideaki in the doorway.

As Hideaki crossed the room after him, he heard the water in the sink turn on again with a steady hiss. Arima's back was turned to him as he ran his hand under the water. Pinkish water droplets beaded on the white bowl of the sink.

"Oh my god," Hideaki groaned as he saw the deep gash in the back of Arima's hand, a wound that seemed as though it might bleed forever. As the hand turned, he saw that the hole went all the way through the palm.

"It didn't hurt like I thought it would," Arima said quietly. "It barely hurts at all now but it keeps bleeding. Do you know how much blood the human body contains?"

"Fuck," Hideaki breathed. He felt his insides shake at the severity of the situation. He wrapped his arms around Arima's back, pulling the other boy's forearms and elbows against his chest. Hideaki breathed against the back of Arima's head. "Please, please don't do this. You wanted my attention? You wanted to make me feel bad? It worked, okay. Whatever I did, I'm sorry."

Arima seemed suddenly so small with his thin clothes and fragile bare feet. Hideaki wanted to wrap around him completely, absorb the other boy into his body where it would be safe and warm.

"You're so egotistical," Arima said viciously, "thinking it's all about you." He pushed himself out of Hideaki's embrace. "Stop touching me already. It's disgusting."

Dropping his arms, Hideaki felt sick, like someone was pushing their foot into his stomach. "Your father needs to see that," he said, looking at the injured hand. "He needs to bandage it or something."

"I'll wrap it up myself," Arima insisted. "If you say anything to anyone, I'm never talking to you again."

Blood filled the wound, trickled over the hand. "Tell me where the stuff is, then," Hideaki pleaded.

"In the hall closet there's a first aid kit," Arima said, watching the warm flow of blood with an almost scientific fascination.

Hideaki went out and retrieved the little white box from its place on the dusty shelf. Lilting classical music drifted up from the room below. When he shut the door to the bedroom behind him, Arima was sitting on the bed, rubbing his fingers in the blood. Hideaki cleaned off most of it with a damp washcloth from the sink and applied some disinfectant before closing the gash with a butterfly bandage.

"This probably needs stitches or something," he said, winding the long, soft gauze bandage. "Your dad could fix it."

"It's fine," Arima declared sharply. A small splotch of red showed on the surface of the gauze, but the bleeding had slowed. Hideaki took his friend's face in both hands and stared at it, searching for an answer. Arima looked impassively back at him. His skin under Hideaki's fingers was hot and slick with sweat. How long had he been bleeding?

"I think you should go now," Arima said stiffly. "Thank you for your help."

Letting go, Hideaki stood. Anger and pain wrestled in his stomach. "Okay," he said. His throat closed up and his face felt numb. It was only the sting of spite that allowed him to get words out at all. "I'll see you at school then." There was particular force on the last word and he went to the door quickly, burning with resentment. "But I'm telling your parents about that hand." His fingers curled around the knob and he paused with a sudden weakness.

"Ah…" Arima moaned faintly, and he could have been trying to his friend's name or he have could simply been sighing with pain. Hideaki turned and looked helplessly at the slumped figure on the wide, white bed. Arima seemed to be collapsing slowly, melting into himself. Powerless, Hideaki lost his resolve.

He went back to the bed and knelt in front of Arima, wrapping his arms around the other boy's legs and resting his chin between the hard kneecaps. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I can't leave now. I'm sorry if you hate me."

The other boy stared at him, face twisting with contained emotion. "What are you…" He bit his lip like a child trying not to cry. "I don't want…"

Hideaki set both hands on Arima's knees and pushed himself up close to the boy's face. He felt terrified, reckless, frantic to do anything that would get him closer to Arima. He could see the fine curve of Arima' wet eyelashes, the pores of his skin. His nose brushed Arima's.

Arima backhanded him hard across the face and he lost his grip, falling back on the floor. His nose throbbed distantly. "Ow." He wiped watery eyes. Slowly, he rose to his feet. "It's going to be like that? Do you want me to hit back then?" He felt his face harden into an unfamiliar expression of fury. Arima glared back at him, eyes red-rimmed and defiant. "You want me to hurt you like you've been hurting yourself?"

"Like I need you," Arima said thickly.

Moving quickly, Hideaki lunged forward and pushed him down on the bed, deep in the covers. Arima thrashed wildly. His elbow knocked forcefully against Hideaki's chin and his fingers tore at the other boy's bright hair. Hideaki was bigger than him, and though Arima had training, he was in no state of mind to use it, weakened by blood loss and inner chaos. Pinning him, Hideaki straddled his stomach and pushed his captured wrists into the mattress. Arima stopped fighting; his muscles seemed to lose all strength and his tightly desperate face went slack. "Why…?" he started to say.

Gradually, Hideaki's breathing slowed as he looking at the pale, lost face of the youth beneath him. Arima's chest contracted and expanded with shallow gasps. Hideaki let go of his wrists, feeling the old rush of need and pain and sadness that seemed eternally entwined in his body.

"I just..." he murmured. "Please don't, Soichiro. Just don't…" He didn't know how to express it, this burning ache for the darker boy. He couldn't put into words the images in his head, the white-hot knife of guilt and long iron needles of self hatred that Arima constantly buried in himself. It terrified Hideaki to see the blood and sickness, to watch the disintegration of Arima's body and soul. "Please."

Hideaki touched the beautiful black hair that framed Arima's face in a dark, messy halo. His hand was smeared with the other boy's drying blood. His fingers trailed the hard cheekbones, the soft hollow of his cheeks. Arima stared at him, eyes glazed, lips parted. Hideaki laid a flat palm on the Arima's chest to feel the movement of his heart and pressed the fingers of his other hand against Arima's throat. Arima swallowed and he felt it. A tear ran down Arima's cheek and he caught it with his knuckles. Liquid and bottomless, Arima's eyes held him, trapped him. He wanted to say it, to speak the heavy, silly words that ripped at his insides. He had become used to hiding them, though, and his tongue couldn't even form them around the thickness in his throat, the weight of his saliva.

"You," he said wetly. "…You."

Arima's chest shuddered as he inhaled sharply and he clenched his eyes shut. _It doesn't work_, Hideaki could have told him. _It doesn't keep them in_. He bent and kissed Arima's damp, salty forehead and the smooth strips of his eyebrows. Tilting his head, he kissed the hard plane of Arima's jaw. The skin beneath his lips trembled. Arima's body heaved. Hideaki kissed Arima's mouth, pressed open the moist, parted lips and the dark boy began to cry thick, wet, heartbroken tears. Arima sobbed against Hideaki's mouth, helpless and weak.

"I'm sorry," Hideaki whispered.

Arima didn't open his eyes but he continued to cry harder, turning his head away as much as he could as his body shook with sobs.

_Are you thinking of her now?_ He didn't understand Arima's tears, his submission, but he knew Arima wasn't crying in happiness, wasn't crying for him._ Why can't it just be us, just be you and me? Why can't I make you happy?_ He kissed Arima's palms. The injured hand had begun to bleed heavily again, soaking through the bandage.

"Shit." Hideaki pushed himself off the bed and went back to the little room with the sink. He washed out the bloody washcloth and brought it back to where Arima lay sprawled on the coverlet, clothes rumpled and face red from crying. He unwound the bandage from the limp hand, cleaned the blood off it, and applied the disinfectant and the butterfly bandage before winding it up again. Arima opened teary eyes to watch him.

"Try to keep it still," Hideaki told him gently. He resisted the urge to kiss Arima's calloused thumb.

Crossing the room to wash out the cloth once more, he caught sight of a bloody straight razor lying on Arima's desk, the kind that school kids used to sharpen their pencils. A wave of nausea rose in his stomach and he had to swallow to keep the bile down. He wrapped the stained blade in Kleenex and dropped it in the wastebasket before cleaning up the mess on the desk.

In the washroom, he studied himself in the mirror as he rinsed out the cloth. Blood had dried on his hands and his jacket. He washed his hands and removed the jacket, scrubbing at the stains before hanging it over the towel rack to dry. In the mirror he saw a rather tall, slender young man with ginger-colored hair that hung around a handsome face with bright, empty eyes.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "Yukino wants to know."

He grinned false happiness and was surprised to see how easily it camouflaged his bright, empty eyes. There was a fading bruise under his left cheekbone and a healing cut on his lip. His nose looked a little red and swollen. Another bruise would probably form on his chin, where Arima's elbow had connected.

"Tough guy," he sneered at himself. "You're just a lousy coward underneath that pretty face. You can't even say it." He glared at his reflection and forced his tongue to move. "Arima…"

Frustrated, he picked up the tube of toothpaste on the counter and squeezed a generous glob on his index finger. He wrote four shaky words on the mirror and stared at them for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. _Arima, I love you_. He laughed softly at himself and washed them off with the cloth, rinsing foamy, mint-smelling water down the drain.

A drinking glass rested on the sink. He filled it with water and took a clean washcloth from the shelf, wetting it in the sink.

In the bedroom, Arima had curled on one side of the bed, his sobbing ceased. He squeezed his eyes shut again when Hideaki approached. The taller boy knelt and wiped at his sticky, tear-smeared face with the cool cloth. Arima reached up with his good had and caught hold of it, opening his eyes to look at Hideaki sullenly. "I can do it," he said thickly.

Hideaki let him clean his own face then offered him the glass of water. Arima drank deeply, draining it rapidly.

"Thanks," he murmured, eyes avoiding Hideaki's.

Hideaki stuffed the washcloth into the empty glass and set it on the nightstand. "Your shirt is stained," he said, motioning toward the marred sleeves. "You'll want to change." He started to unbutton the front of the shirt and Arima pushed his hands away.

"I'm not a kid," he said gruffly. "If you want to help, get me a shirt… middle drawer on the dresser."

"Okay." Hideaki brought him a soft black t-shirt, savoring the glimpse of bare chest before Arima slipped it over his head. The stained dress shirt was balled up and pushed under the bed.

Arima crawled under the sheets and pulled the covers up to his chin. Weighted with resignation, Hideaki was about to go and gather up his jacket when Arima's muffled voice spoke. "Are you staying tonight?"

Pausing for a moment, Hideaki let the blessed warmth of relief spread through his body. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I will." He slid under the covers beside his friend, still wearing his school uniform.

"Good night," Arima said curtly, voice still foggy from crying.

"Good night." Hideaki sighed quietly and turned on his side to watch the sharp slope of Arima's back and shoulders, his dark hair on the pillow. He didn't try to touch the other boy again. He listened until his friend's breathing slowed to an even rhythm and hugged the mattress beneath him, burying his face in the pillow as though it were Arima's sweet hair.

-

The creak of the door opening awakened Hideaki in the dark bedroom. He became immediately aware of Arima's sleeping body curled against his and Arima's warm face resting against his shoulder. Next he noticed that the figure standing in the doorway watching them was Arima's mother. The light in the hall silhouetted the shape of her long skirt. A trickle of fear and guilt ran down his spine. Did this look suspicious? Did boys usually sleep like this?

Reluctantly, he rolled away from Arima and sat up. She waved silently in apology, appealing him to go back to sleep, but he slipped off the bed and followed her silently down the stairs, leaving Arima asleep on the bed.

In the kitchen, she set a kettle on the stove. "I'm sorry to wake you, Asaba. Some nights I can't sleep and I get up for some midnight tea." The plain gold ring on her finger shone in the dim light of the kitchen. "Would you care for some?"

"Yes, thank you, Arima-san." He sat down at the table, smiling.

Like her husband, she had small wrinkles around her mouth and eyes that collected when she smiled. "You can call me Shizune, if you like. Isn't the sort of thing that a cool mom would say?"

"I wouldn't know," Hideaki replied innocently. "My mother isn't nearly as cool as you."

"Ah." She laughed softly. "You're too polite."

He watched the way she moved about the familiar kitchen and thought of the comforting smell of his mother's dinners on the stove when he came home from school, the sound of her voice when she had scolded him for leaving his dripping wet umbrella on the floor. That had always been the safe time, right after school before his dad got home from work, before the bitter accusations started. He had loved his mother then for her comfort and hated her for her silence when his father spoke. Gradually it had grown to the point where he couldn't reconcile the two sides of her at all and he didn't want to see either of them.

The water heated quickly and Arima's mother poured it into the small cups and the teapot to warm them. "When Soichiro was little boy, he would have nightmares and the two of us would come down here and drink tea until he felt better." She emptied the teapot into the sink and spooned in the flaky tea leaves. "He was so quiet and sweet but he tried so hard. We never knew what to say to him to convince him that he didn't have to be perfect for us to love him." Lifting the two cups, she poured the hot water from them into the teapot and stirred it lightly.

Hideaki watched the steam rising out of the pot in little pale ribbons. "That must be very comforting," he said politely "to have such caring parents. Running over the surface of the polished table, his cold fingertips traced the grains in the wood.

Shizune poured a neat cup of tea and set it on the table in front of him. White snowflakes dappled its blue glaze. "I'm happy you came tonight, Asaba. Soichiro is going through a difficult time right now. I'm happy you stayed by him."

Aching with guilt, Hideaki lifted the cup to his lips. "I'm not really that great of a friend, actually." He burned his tongue on the first sip, just as he'd known he would.

Shizune smiled gently and shook her head. "I know people, and I can see it in you. You're a very kind person, Asaba. You're a good boy."

-

When Hideaki returned to the room upstairs, he found Arima sitting upright in the pooled blankets. He clutched a soft pink jacket to his face, the thin, flimsy kind that girls wore over their halter tops in the summer to project some kind of modesty. Arima held it to his face, eyes closed as though inhaling deeply of some sacred scent. Hearing the door close, he looked up and met Hideaki's eyes with a hooded, defensive expression. Still grasping the jacket to his nose and mouth, he turned to lie on his side, back to Hideaki. "Are you leaving yet?"

A frigid silence filled the room. "I thought you wanted me to stay," Hideaki said uncertainly, standing at a wary distance from the bed. Of course Arima knew exactly how to reach across the divide between them and claw out his heart.

"I don't. You should go home already."

A grating, excruciating pause followed. "Okay," Hideaki chirped, inwardly pasting himself together again. "I'll just get my jacket." He crossed the room to the little washroom with the silvery towel rack. The jacket still felt damp when he put it on and the bloodstain on the edge of one sleeve hadn't quite come out.

"Bye," he said to Arima's shape, curled up on the wide bed. Arima crossed his arms over his eyes, trapping the pink garment under his chin.

When he descended the stairs and passed by the kitchen, he saw Shizune washing out the kettle and teapot. Noticing the painting of the delicate cherry tree on the pot's surface, he realized that the white dots on his cup had been sakura petals, not snowflakes.

"Are you leaving?" she asked when he came to say goodbye.

"Yeah. I have to get my stuff for school tomorrow and everything's at home." He shrugged defenselessly.

"At least wait until morning. Stay here and Souji will drive you over before classes."

He shook his head and bowed dramatically. "Thank you so much for the tea, Shizune-san. I'm honored to be served by such a wise and beautiful hostess."

She laughed and covered her mouth modestly. "Come again soon, Asaba… and be careful on your way home."

He closed the door behind him and went out to the street. In the sky above, the moon shone faintly through the thick clouds like a light sunken deep underwater, a lost lantern shining from the cold depths of an endless well.

-

Hideaki never saw the moment when Yukino confronted Arima for the final time. In the break after second period, he received a call to come to the main office. Yukino was waiting on the phone to tell him that Arima had been taken to the hospital. Hideaki felt his brain freeze up.

"What happened?"

"His hand," she groaned. "He cut himself and it was bleeding so much. I made him go."

Hideaki felt the first wave of shame and relief wash over him. She had done what he couldn't and gotten Arima help.

"I think it's going to be okay," she said softly. "I think maybe I got through to him today. I was terrified. He kept talking like he was giving up, telling me that I would be better off with someone else. It was really scary but I told him that I wasn't letting go so he'd better get used to it."

"That's great," Hideaki said. "That's really great."

"Oh, and I broke a window, just to let you know before the rumors start flying like crazy."

Hideaki lifted his eyebrows. "With what?"

She giggled nervously. "Uh, my hand, actually. I'm in the hospital too… but it's just a little cut, nothing major like his. I had to convince him somehow that I was willing to share his pain."

Hideaki didn't know what to say. "Drama queen," he complained. "You just want some attention."

Yukino laughed. "Hey, come over after school if you can."

"Sure. The secretary is looking at me funny. I gotta go."

"One more thing. Could you spread a rumor for me? Arima got so worn out from studying that he collapsed and put his hand through the window. I tried to save him but also suffered an unfortunate flesh wound from the glass."

The secretary came up behind Hideaki, looking grim, and he had to squelch a grin. "I shall do what I can," he vowed. "Try to pull through, Yukinon. I'll come to visit my dear suffering friends as soon as I can."

"Okay," Yukino agreed. "Well, see you soon then."

He hung up the phone and put on a sorrowful face for the secretary. "Terrible news! Arima-kun and Miyazawa-san have both been hospitalized for debilitating injuries connected with exhaustion from their massive workloads."

The secretary was a small woman with graying hair and a worried face. "I know these children study too hard," she fretted. "Seniors at this school just have too many responsibilities that they take so seriously."

"Oh yes," he agreed solemnly, all the while laughing inwardly. After all Arima and Yukino had been through, it seemed downright hilarious to think that something like the pressure of exams would be the thing to break them.

He left school before his classes ended and took the train to the downtown hospital that Arima's family ran. The young woman he spoke to at the desk had blonde streaks in her hair. She flipper her ponytail at him flirtatiously as she told him Arima's room number.

When he finally got out of the elevator and reached the room on the third floor it had been nearly two hours since Yukino's phone call. The door was not completely closed. A band of light shone through its narrow crack. Silently, he pushed it open.

Arima lay on the smooth white sheets like a beautiful martyr, straight and clean in his pressed robe with his neatly bandaged hand resting on his covered stomach. Yukino sat in a chair beside him but she had fallen asleep, her head resting beside his legs and her fingers clasping the blankets. Her smooth hair made a bright splash of color on the pale bed. Hideaki saw the large band-aid on the back of her own hand standing out like a promise seal.

Pink-orange light came in from the sunset outside the window, bathing Arima's face in a healthy, golden glow. _You could make a painting out of this_, Hideaki thought, _or a sappy movie_. Arima's head turned on the pillow and he saw that the dark-haired boy was looking right at him. Hideaki's mouth dried up. Arima smiled softly, slowly, with a shaky uncertainty. It was an honest smile, but still fearful. Speechless, Hideaki tried to muster a grin, but his mouth felt like lumpy glue.

A sharp finger poked Hideaki's lower back and he jumped in surprise, spinning around. Shizune stood behind him, smiling broadly and holding a bag of clothes. Arima's sniggering laughter came from the bed.

"You ambushed me," Hideaki accused, brushing at his sleeves in an attempt to regain his dignity. "All this time I thought you were such a lady."

"Hi, Mom. Hi Asaba." Arima said quietly. Yukino sat up and yawned. "Go back to sleep," he told her.

"I have to pee," she grumbled.

"Oh, thanks for that information."

"I'm sorry for surprising you, Asaba," Shizune said, facing Hideaki. "You were just too much of a target." She closed both hands over the handles of the bag she carried. "Do you mind if I have a moment alone with my son?"

"No problem."

Yukino followed him out the door and into the hallway. "Thanks for coming," she said when the door closed. "You can see it, right? I think he's really getting better this time."

Hideaki leaned back against the wall and listening to the machines beeping in the room next door, the low buzz of a television. "Is he opening up to you now?"

"Yeah." She took a deep breath of relief and the frilly edges of the sleeveless top she wore over her turtleneck rose and fell. "I can't believe what he's been through. I've never seen him this honest before. Have you ever seen Arima cry?"

Hideaki thought of the broken body sobbing against him that night, too anguished and afraid to resist his advances. He remembered the smell of Arima's sweat and the taste of his mouth. His fingers scraped against the plaster on the wall.

"No, I haven't" he lied. "That would be something to see."

Yukino went down the hall to the restrooms at the end but Hideaki continued to lean against the wall, listening to the sound of Shizune's concerned voice in the closed room and Arima's softer replies. He thought he ought to wait and visit with Arima after she came out but there were no words left in his throat for the boy. The thought of playing the fool again made him feel ill. Straightening, he started down the hall toward the elevator that would take him to the exit.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **Hello, dear readers. Thank you for your patience and your reviews. Even if you didn't leave a review, that fact that you read this story through to the end indicates it must have appealed to you on some level (and that makes me happy).

Endless thanks to Starbrigid who worked so hard to beta this, wading valiantly through my errors and offering me great advice. Without her first prodding email, this story never would have gotten off my laptop. Also, special thanks to GoldenEyes, who pushed me off my butt to get this posted. She's reviewed every chapter faithfully with great, specific encouragement.

Now, the final chapter. Minor spoilers for the end of the series, but not much. Apologies to everyone who still hoped that Arima would suddenly suffer amnesia and forget about Yukino altogether, falling in Hideaki's arms instead. Will it be a happy ending? No. A hopeful ending? Yes.

**Chapter 13**

Everything changed over the next few months. Arima was nervous, vulnerable, and seemed prey to sudden, overwhelming emotions, but he was also more open and genuine than Hideaki had ever seen. It was both painful and gratifying to watch Arima's sudden spells of embarrassment, his open astonishment at how quickly his friends accepted his explanations. Tsubaki, Aya and the others leapt at the idea of protecting Arima from his birth mother's harassment. Hideaki sat in the back of the classroom, the sun warming his back as he listened to their discussion of creative protection plots.

He didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved that Arima never talked about that strange night in the bedroom with the razor on the desk. He did know that he liked this new Arima, the boy who admitted what he felt and had stopped running away. Hideaki saw the way Arima watched Yukino walking in front of him up the path to school, head tilted, eyes wondering. They stopped to look at the lights strung on the railing around the courtyard. She lifted Arima's hand in hers and touched the healing scab, humming softly under her breath. Arima looked down at her head covered in the black wool cap. Her red-brown hair peeked out the edges. Arima's lips were parted and his eyes wide open, light filling his face like a man watching the sun rise in the valley.

One of the best perks of this new Arima was the fact that Hideaki got his friends back at last. Tsubaki acted as though nothing had happened and went about teasing him regularly. Aya barely noticed his presence, as usual. Rika regarded him with shy embarrassment until he convinced her that he had never held a grudge and was eager to talk to her again. They fell back into the usual comfortable routine after the success of Operation Remove Evil Mother, but things had changed irrevocably in the group. Everyone around him seemed to be moving in pairs, and with Arima no longer in need of his support or confidence, Hideaki was left like an abandoned sock in the bottom of the laundry basket. Tsubaki had Tonami, Tsubasa had her rock star brother-fiancée, Maho had her handsome dentist, Rika had Aya's shy brother, Aya was eternally married to her work, and Arima and Yukino, as always, had each other.

None of Hideaki's girlfriends had ever mattered to him as anything more than social objects or entertaining friends. Without Arima, he felt like a tree with all its buds snipped off. Some sudden frost had made it impossible for him to branch out while everyone else flowered with happiness. When had this happened? Before Arima he had been content enough as the quirky, pleasant child basking in the light of others' attention. He wanted to blame Arima for this emptiness, this numbing confusion. Loving Arima had sucked all the warmth from his bones. He felt as though someone had scraped out his insides raw and left him like a gutted fish. In the end, he had no one but himself to blame for this futile, foolish obsession.

-

Right before winter break, Hideaki had his final roof-meeting with Arima. This time, when Hideaki reached the open air, Arima was standing straight and tall with one foot resting on the ledge that supported the bars around the edge, a ship's captain looking out at the vast wind-capped ocean.

"Hey," Hideaki said, approaching him. "It's kind of cold out."

Arima turned to face him, leaning his back against the bars. His eyes looked bright and clear, shining with a sharp anticipation that softened slowly to pity. Confused and afraid, Hideaki deftly avoided Arima's open gaze and leaned himself beside the other boy, facing away from his friend. With the railing pressing against his ribs, he stared out at the landscape below as though there was nothing more fascinating than the wide lawns of the school grounds white with frost.

"So, a few more months and we're outta here," he said casually. The railing burned like solid ice against his bare wrists.

"I wanted to apologize to you, Asaba," Arima said softly. He took a deep breath that made Hideaki's skin crawl with dread. "I talked with Miyazawa and I realized… a lot of things."

"Ah," Hideaki felt a caustic, fiery pain in the pit of his stomach and he swallowed against the rising bile of self-loathing. "No problem. It's cool." _Shut up, shut up, shut up!_

"I treated you badly," Arima continued doggedly in a low voice. "I ignored your feelings and I said a lot of… hurtful things. I don't expect you will forget them but I hope you can forgive me."

Hideaki tucked his numb hands under his sleeves and held them against his chest. "Sure," he said, drawing out the word for reassurance. He licked his chapped lips and swallowed the bitter taste again. "You owe me one, though. When I get the chance, I'm going to cry on your shoulder all the time in embarrassing situations and walk all over you like a cheap rug." He chuckled to relieve the tension and the skin of his bottom lip cracked painfully.

"That's fine. I want to be here for you," Arima said earnestly. "You were always there for me and I want to help you when you need it." He continued to stand with his back to the railing and Hideaki was glad that Arima couldn't see his face, couldn't see his struggle to keep his features in order. Arima lifted his left arm and slung it over Hideaki's chest, gripping his shoulder. Hideaki could feel the firm muscles of Arima's upper arm against his other shoulder, holding him steadily.

"Thanks," Hideaki rasped. He ran his tongue over the cracked skin of his lip. From this height he could see most of the school buildings, the silver ribbon of the river, and the little grove of trees over the stone bench, the one that bore the brief message, _Wind loves sky._ Arima's elbow pressed painfully against his breastbone.

"You'll find someone soon," Arima assured him. "You've always been popular with girls. I know you can move forward."

"Yeah," Hideaki agreed. Arima's arm felt like a chain on his chest, weighing his body down. The wind stung his eyes, made them tear and burn so he closed them tight and stretched his lips, strained his mouth into a smile that covered everything.

-

Snow began to fall that afternoon in fast flurry of white. When the wind blew it against the windows of the classroom, the flakes beat themselves against the glass like frightened insects. Leaving school, Hideaki knotted his colorful scarf around his neck and adjusted his book bag over his coat. He hadn't brought gloves and fretted inwardly at the thought of dry, cracked skin. The sharp point of an umbrella poked him in the side unexpectedly and he nearly jumped into the wall.

"No umbrella?" Yukino chirped, looking up at him with an adorably innocent expression. "You'll ruin your perfect hair."

He ran a hand through his bright locks, pushing them up messily. "I'm so glad you noticed. But shouldn't you be sharing your precious umbrella protection with Arima?"

She wrinkled her nose. "He's at cram school learning whatever future medical students can afford to learn."

"Ah," Hideaki sighed. "How to make lots of money and still look handsome, I imagine."

She opened the umbrella over them as they exited the building and he watched the snow begin to settle onto its thin membrane in small, dark shadows.

"I hoped we'd have snow for Christmas," Yukino said. "What are you doing for Christmas Eve, Asaba?"

"Are you inviting me?" he asked excitedly, dodging the question easily. "Let's leave Arima behind and go to Disneyland together! It would be_ so _romantic."

She shook her head fondly. "You're changing the subject, of course. I'll let it go this time if you promise to give me some more advice."

"I charge 900 yen a minute for my counseling service," he quipped. "You'll have to set up an appointment ahead of time, but I'm afraid I can't promise much flexibility at this busy time of year."

"Ha, ha," Yukino said dryly. They walked by a park where children ran about in their thick winter coats, twirling and trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Hideaki noticed that the snow was already thinning fast.

"You were around Arima a lot when he was struggling," she said slowly. "You saw parts of him that he never showed me. I guess I can admit that I'm still a little jealous of that…"

"But he tells you everything now," Hideaki protested. "Why are you complaining?"

She stopped walking and stood by a rickety park bench, closing her umbrella. Only an occasional flake drifted down now. "I never went through what he did. I had a perfect, happy childhood. No matter how horrible I feel about how he suffered, I'm stupid to think I'll ever really understand it." She smoothed the damp fabric of the umbrella with her fingers. A snowflake settled right above her left eyebrow and he stared at it mindlessly.

"So what?" he said. She jabbed the umbrella in his direction and he sidled away. "I mean, what does it matter if you haven't experienced what he has? It's not like he needs someone to stand around and pity him all day." In the park, one of the toddlers fell down into the wet grass and started wailing. "He needs someone who can make him happy. Worrying about this stuff just shows how much you love him, silly girl." The snowflake on Yukino's brow had melted into a clear, perfect water droplet and he reached to wipe it off with his thumb. "You guys are so good together. You'll probably be together for the rest of your lives and turn into one of those feisty old couples with a million bratty kids."

"Hey," she grumbled. He saw her fingers go to her stomach unconsciously and a sudden incredible suspicion swelled in his mind.

"Will I be Uncle Asaba?"

Yukino looked down at the umbrella in her hands for a moment before lifting her head to glare at him. "Maybe someday, if you're not too nosy." She looked away, feigning nonchalance. "Of course, I plan to finish college first." Her breath showed white in the chill air. The silver clips in her hair glittered with condensation.

"I thought we weren't keeping secrets anymore," he teased, trying to lighten the mood.

"As if you're not keeping your own," she said with a vehemence that startled him. "All that fighting over Arima back when I first met you… I thought it was just a joke."

"It was a joke," he assured her, feeling suddenly naked and afraid. "It was a silly game. We both knew who he wanted. There was no competition."

She gripped the umbrella, pulling it close to her body and raised her free hand to cover the side of her face. Her eyelashes trembled against her fingers. "I've been so jealous of you all this time… but now I just feel sad."

He threw up his hands in a dramatic gesture of confusion. "Why? Be young! Be happy! Be in love!" When she didn't reply, he touched one of her silver hairclips gently, smearing the condensation on it and clouding its bright surface. "You are so incredibly lucky, you can't possibly be sad."

She pushed her fingernails into her skin and her face crumpled. "_Asaba_," she sobbed. In a sudden rush, she pressed herself against his chest. Automatically, he closed his arms around her, sheltering her shaking body. A snowflake melted on the back of his neck and trickled between his shoulder blades. One of the children in the park complained loudly that she was cold and wanted to go _home_. Hideaki wanted to go home. He wanted to lock himself in his apartment. He wanted to fall asleep in the bath and never wake up. He didn't want to stand outside a park in winter, comforting a distraught Yukino who was crying for him, of all people. Her compassion rattled inside him, like noisy marbles shaking in an empty cup.

Yukino continued to cry softly against his coat and he tried to calm her, rubbing circles into her small back. "You're fine," he murmured soothingly. "Don't cry over something like this." He saw her future stretched out on the horizon, brilliant and fruitful, her destined marriage to Arima, her successful career, her beautiful children. In his own future, he saw blank stretches, empty spaces, bleak expanses of nothing. He bent his head so that his nose touched the top of her warm hair. "Little sister, don't cry over nothing."

-

For winter break, Yukino went with Arima to stay at his family's fancy vacation home in Tateshina. Hideaki spent his winter break trying not to resent them. He wondered if Yukino was really pregnant and what Arima's reaction would be if she told him. As the illegitimate son of another illegitimate child, would he be terrified by the symbolic pattern? Hideaki couldn't really picture him as a father. However, he felt completely certain that Yukino would be an excellent mother—exuberantly loving, overly organized, and highly protective of her offspring.

When Arima returned to school after break, he said nothing about children. The first thing he asked Hideaki about was music, particularly jazz music. His exact words were, "Hey, you're into music, right? Do you know where I can order an import CD by Arima Reiji?"

-

On Hideaki's birthday, the gang gathered briefly after school to get ice cream sundaes at the shop near the school. They all crowded around a table in the corner and conversation immediately gravitated to the fact that Arima's dad, the popular American jazz pianist was coming to Japan.

"He said he'd contact you," Maho told Arima. "Have you heard anything yet?"

Arima shook his head and Yukino spoke up. "What is he like? You guys met him in New York, right? Is he as scary as his music?"

Maho frowned. "No, he seemed very polite, very Japanese. Yusuke said that his music has changed recently. It's much easier to listen to."

Hideaki inhaled a little of his milkshake and coughed hard. Tsubaki whacked his back helpfully, nearly shoving him into the table.

"Oh, happy birthday, Asaba," Rika said shyly. "I have something for you."

She presented him with a lovely framed color pencil sketch of a costume design that they had worked on together for the play. It made him smile fondly at the memory and Rika blushed happily.

Aya gave him a book about host clubs in Japan while Arima and Yukino had pitched in to buy Hideaki an expensive set of new paints and brushes. Taped to the package of paints was a note in Arima's firm handwriting: '_Go to Art School!_' After a little thought, Tsubasa decided to give him a pink ribbon from one of her pigtails. She climbed over the back of his chair to tie it in his hair, humming cheerfully as her fingers worked. Tsubaki was thoughtful enough to present him with a large package of condoms, much to the mortification of Arima and Tonami.

"You're eighteen now," Tsubaki said matter-of-factly. "You can have sex with older women and they won't get sent to jail."

"Really?" Yukino asked curiously. "I thought that only worked the other way around, with an older man."

Tsubaki shrugged. "Okay Asaba, you can have sex with older men, then. Enjoy."

"Don't give him any ideas," Aya advised.

"Hey, you guys," Tonami protested, his face deeply stained with color. "We're in a public place, you know."

Hideaki waved the packet of condoms at him threateningly and the taller boy jerked away, tipping his chair backwards onto the floor and causing everyone to burst into laughter. Tsubaki tried to help him up, but she was laughing so hard, she could barely take his hand.

Afterwards, Hideaki followed Arima and Yukino back to Arima's house where they ate the delicious strawberry shortcake that Shizune-san had baked. Yukino asked her about how Arima helped her in the kitchen when he was a child and her boyfriend colored and protested as his mother detailed his moments of sweet innocence. "You're all growing up now," Shizune said a little sadly. "And I know you'll be wonderful, successful adults, but there's nothing like the voice of a child."

The three of them went upstairs to pick a video out of Arima's antiquated collection. Yukino flipped through the plastic cases with a despairing expression. She confirmed that he had an older version of 'The Phantom of the Opera' somewhere in the house and went downstairs to ask his mother about it. Alone in the room with Arima, Hideaki shoved his hands into his pockets and tried not to stare at the mahogany desk behind Arima, completely cleaned of blood. Idly, Arima scratched at the pinkish scar on the back of his hand. Hideaki watched the movement of his fingers until he realized what he was doing. His eyes darted to the wide bed, the polished door. The room felt suddenly too small for his huge, awkward body.

Arima cleared his throat nervously. "Um, thanks for telling me about that music store. I ordered a copy of my dad's CD and it came in on Friday." He gestured toward the small player on his desk. "You want to hear it?"

"Sure," Hideaki said. His voice filled the room, too loud and overeager.

Arima put the CD into the player and a familiar song began, a haunting piece of music that made the fine hairs on Hideaki's neck stand up. An icy-hot chill raced up his spine and he breathed deeply. Arima stared back into his wide eyes and whispered, "I know." Electricity tingled in Hideaki's fingers, the back of his arms. He felt the beat of the notes in his pulse, filled with lonely, fierce desperation. He felt as though it mirrored the muddy, shaded waters of his own heart, drawing him into places he didn't want to see.

Arima turned off the music and turned back to his friend. "It scared me so much when I was a kid. I cried when I heard him play." He reached out and pulled the pink ribbon out of Hideaki's hair. When he held it in his hand, the loose knot slipped apart and it hung over his flushed palm, limp and shining.

-

In January Arima's father toured Japan and reunited with his son. From what Hideaki heard, there were good times and bad times. Arima got to know his dad but also had to face his rejection. He learned about his family's torrid past, his adopted father's guilt, and the tyranny of his perfect grandfather. Arima Reiji played several concerts in Japan and Hideaki never saw one. He did, however, make copies of the CDs Arima had bought and played them over and over in the confines of his small apartment until he felt he could understand and bear the pain and beauty in the music.

In February, Hideaki posed for Rika's midterm project. She painted a portrait of him against a background of blue sky, despite the fact that he modeled for her in the dim art room. The shadows on his face in the portrait were all wrong. She painted his hair as though it moved in the wind.

In March, Mika-Mika, the neighbor girls' cat, was tragically killed by a car. Hideaki helped conduct a funeral, supplying both flowers and incense sticks. They constructed a little cardboard shrine, complete with a crayon portrait of the dearly departed. Later, he helped them pick out a new kitten from another litter and held it in his cupped palm, lifting it up under his chin. He smelled the warm fur and felt the movement of tiny, blind life squirming against his skin, intent on survival by any means.

In April he kissed a girl in a club with heavy music that thundered inside his head. She smelled like perfume and sweat and tasted like saliva. He looked through catalogs of wedding dresses with Yukino and Tsubasa. His father called to ask about graduation and Hideaki assured him that he would pass all his classes. "I even cut my hair," he said, neglecting to mention that it had almost grown back since September. They said nothing about his plans after high school. His father told him that they would both be there, his mother and his father.

"I didn't think you'd make it at that place, but you did," his dad said. "Congratulations."

In May, he went strawberry picking with Yukino and Arima, her idea for a senior trip. Hideaki tried his best to be funny, useful, silly, resourceful. He packed a lavish, extensive lunch. He challenged Yukino to a berry-picking contest and fell into a shallow stream. Yukino glowed like a ripening fruit but her swelling belly and full breasts barely showed under her loose sundress. The back of Arima's neck turned pink with sunburn and his fingertips stained brilliantly with berry juice. Hideaki couldn't bite into a strawberry without thinking of tasting those fingers.

In June, graduation came and went with many gatherings and partings. They barely had time to take a picture of the group before Tsubaki and Tonami flew off like wintering birds to a hot, exotic country. As a graduation gift, Hideaki's parents gave him a cell phone and told him how proud they were in many practiced, dried words. He smiled and thanked them, playing the game to make them happy, at least this once. He posed for pictures until his face hurt and his eyes burned from countless flashes. Girls hung on his arms and pleaded for _"one more, one more."_

Arima kissed Yukino out in the open, in front of a hundred people. She lifted her face as though accepting an expected gift. He held the back of her head, pushing her hair over one ear, and covered her mouth, briefly, fully. Hideaki left his parents talking to Counselor Kawashima and wandered behind the building where he found Aya. She sat against the brick wall, her neat, formal dress pulled tight against her calves, smoking a cigarette. Seeing him, she nodded lazily and lifted the diploma in her hand as though admiring its shape. "First day of the rest of your life, eh?"

-

The wedding followed quickly after graduation. Yukino asked Hideaki to design the invitations and he sketched a portrait of the happy couple. Originally, he had them seated in front of the river, but Arima complained about the mosquitoes and they had to move indoors. Arima sat stiffly at first and made mechanical facial expressions, but after Hideaki teased him enough and Yukino made faces, he finally broke into a brilliant natural smile.

After three years of struggling, Hideaki found no difficulty in sketching Arima's face this time. Arima's beauty seemed so much more genuine and fit with Yukino perfectly. It was like sketching two sides of a vase, not such much for their similarity but in the way they complimented each other. He looked over the preliminary sketches with satisfaction, inked them, and added soft colors.

They had planned a Western ceremony for the main event and a traditional ceremony to satisfy Arima's family—or so he claimed. Hideaki suspected it might have something to do with the fact that Yukino got to wear both a fluffy wedding gown and a sleek kimono. When she put on the lacy dress with its long, transparent veil, she looked like a princess from the clouds, full with child and beautiful as a dream.

A week before the ceremony, Hideaki was scheduled to meet the couple in order to discuss arrangements for the refreshments that he had planned and look over the accommodations. He took the train down to the nicer part of town and walked to the location. As he came in sight of the impressive brick building where the wedding would be held, his cell phone rang. It was Arima, apologizing profusely. "We had to wait forever to get seated at the restaurant," he explained, "and now we're stuck in traffic. Maho, Aya, and Dad should be coming too, so if you see any of them, let them know we'll be late."

"No problem," Hideaki assured him. "We'll be here whenever you get here." He ended the call and slipped the phone into his pocket. The sun had dipped beneath the horizon and the uncomfortably warm day was cooling off pleasantly. He climbed the steps of the building and looked at his reflection in the glass of the doors. They were locked, of course, and no one else had arrived yet. Resigned, he sat on the edge of the cement steps and dangled his feet idly. The pale blue flowers on the bush next to him were beginning to wilt and he picked some off, tearing them apart between his fingers and tossing the bright pieces into the air like confetti.

Someone laughed softly to the side of him and he slid off the steps, startled. Near the sidewalk stood two thick stone posts that supported the big sign for the building. A man leaned against one of them, his dark clothing blending in with the shade of the sign. The sight was so familiar that Hideaki swallowed, suddenly drawn back three years to his first day of high school when he had stood transfixed by the image of a dark boy swallowed in the shadow of a granite pillar. He stood and moved closer to see the stranger's features and his breath caught painfully in his throat. Those eyes, that face, they were remarkably similar, coldly, devastatingly handsome.

"Arima?" he said before he could stop himself. His voice sounded strange in his ears, too breathy and expectant against the pound of the pulse in his throat. He felt as though he had just run around the entire building. A wisp of smoke crossed his vision. The man lifted a cigarette from his lips and smiled at him with an edge of condescending amusement.

"Yeah, that's me." His voice was low and smooth. His hair was as black as Arima's but longer, framing his hypnotic eyes and high cheekbones. He looked like a model, spoke like a musician, and smoked like an artist. "But I don't think I'm the Arima you're looking for."

Hideaki couldn't control the dizzying rush of euphoria that filled his chest when Arima Reiji looked at him like that, all sarcastic nonchalance and sly, keen interest. He couldn't stop the grin that split his features, burned into his face. "I think maybe you are," he said.

-

Hideaki hadn't seen many babies in his life, but he knew that none of them could be as beautiful as Yukino's infant girl. Arima Sakura had wide, dark eyes and wisps of soft, sable hair. She never cried once in the entire duration of Hideaki's visit at the hospital but stared at him precociously, calm and alert. "She shouldn't even be able to focus yet," Yukino told him. "I think she's going to be another little prodigy."

"With parents like you two, no one will be surprised." Hideaki kissed Sakura's downy forehead and her mother's warm cheek. "I'll miss you guys."

Yukino sighed and smoothed her baby's black hair. "Something tells me you're not going to art school," she said.

"It can wait. I'm flying to America next week. Reiji's manager hired me as an assistant for his tour." He shrugged to hide the excitement that raced up his throat when he said the words. "Just fetching coffee and taking suits to the dry cleaner, you know."

Yukino pretended to scowl. "Lucky bastard," she complained. "You can barely speak English."

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that." He looked out the window at the dead leaves caught in the sill. "My dad is going to kill me when he finds out, so I need to leave as soon as possible. Say hi to Soichiro for me."

Yukino sighed again at the prospect of telling Arima. "Come back to visit us within the next year or I'll revoke you from your position as my child's godfather," she threatened. And then, with uncontainable affection, "Good luck, Hidebaka, if you really need it. You're one of those beautiful idiots who can succeed at anything, I think."

He exited the hospital to the parking lot outside, whistling a jazzy tune under his breath and caught sight of a stressed-looking Arima Soichiro rushing for the doors with a shopping bag on each arm. Briefly, Hideaki considered going to speak with the young man but he shook his head fondly and turned away, letting his friend return to his brand new family in the warm hospital room.

The path around the parking lot was planted with thick azalea bushes and towering, dark-leaved maple trees that rustled dryly in the sudden hot wind. In a few weeks those big leaves would color, and fall to cover the ground until someone raked them up or blew them away. When Hideaki extended his arms he could see the patterned shadows of the leaves rushing over his skin, changing in the wind with sudden flashes of light. He felt as though he could barely contain the vibrant music rising in his mind, in his throat and he began to sing a steady, wordless tune, in an off-key voice. The sun blazed through the clouds and the leaves above Hideaki as he danced carelessly down the shaded path by the parking lot, alone and unafraid.


End file.
